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Gilmore To Read: Beck Dorey Stein's Graduation Was Covered By Rory Gilmore? · Gilmore To Say: A Gilmore Girls Podcast

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: 5, 6, 7, 8, low.
• 0:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hi y'all, welcome or welcome back to y'all much to read.
• 0:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host Haley and I'm so glad you're here.
• 0:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Mostly because my guest today is one of the most fun conversations I've had this summer.
• 0:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is none other than the positively spectacular, Victoria Stein.
• 0:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I do mean spectacular is more than just a call to her New York Times bestseller, spectacular things.
• 0:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: There was so much that I learned about her that feels so aligned with what I know y'all love, including her leap into writing, how that came about from her previous career, which is so cool, but mostly throwing it back to her high school days of watching Gilmore Girls with her mom and sister.
• 0:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you're going to need to hear her out on why she feels the way she does on some hot button issues, a very tall hot button issue, if you will.
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think you're really going to relate to why she stands so firmly where she does in the Gilmore world,
• 0:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: But of course, we're mainly here to talk about her novel Spectacular Things, which if you have not yet read it and you love Gilmar Girls, actually stop listening to this episode and go get this book, or, you know what, you can just keep listening and take us with you to the store, and I'll tell you about it while you go.
• 1:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: We spend some time talking about it in the episode, but Spectacular Things asks the question, what would you give up for the person you love most and what would you expect in return?
• 1:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And rather than redo the full synopsis which you can look up, I'm going to tell you why that question is asked.
• 1:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sisters Mia and Cricket are both at spectacular moments in their lives, Mia's giving birth to her first daughter and cricket is winning an Olympic gold medal in US women's soccer.
• 1:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because of complications in labor, Mia needs a kidney in order to live.
• 1:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: But in order for cricket to give Mia a kidney, that would mean she would have to decide to give up her soccer career for good.
• 1:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And in order to explain the complex history behind that ask, Beck takes us back to the beginning of cricket in the story.
• 1:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Although it back to their mother, Liz Lowe, who was a promising soccer star about to head to college when she gets pregnant.
• 2:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: She decides to leave her family and raise her daughter on her own in a small New England town to make a brand new life for her and her daughter.
• 2:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And while that is a very familiar setup, the departure that back takes in the exploration of themes that you love creates an entirely different story.
• 2:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's what I love so much about this book club is taking something that feels so familiar and something that you love so much.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And kind of turning it on its head and exploring it in a completely different direction because this book explores the relationship between sisters, what it means to sacrifice and soccer.
• 2:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's no soccer in Gilmar girls, but also how all three of those things hurt and heal the low sisters.
• 2:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just think that you would absolutely love this.
• 2:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is one of my favorite books I've read this year.
• 2:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was truly so moving.
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Back has a writing style that is so emotional and precise.
• 2:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: I underlined so many beautiful lines in terms of phrase that had me in tears.
• 2:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, if you flip through my copy of this, it's me in conversation with back before you even decided that this was going to be a book club pick.
• 3:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And Jesusports metaphor it back is at the top of her game with this one, but a bit about back.
• 3:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Back to a Stein group in Narbworth, Pennsylvania, and taught high school English for three years before serving as a White House denographer from 2012 to 2017.
• 3:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Her first book from the corner of the oval was a New York Times bestseller.
• 3:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: She now lives on the coast of Maine.
• 3:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if y'all have read spectacular things, you know that victory main is where this book is set, but if you need more to read for Beck, I highly recommend getting her memoir from the corner of the oval, which is just a fantastic name for someone who is there observing the president.
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: We briefly touch on this history of her as the stenographer for President Obama, but the way she writes so vulnerable about her emotional personal life, juxtaposed against a once in a lifetime sort of job flying on Air Force One, traveling with the president.
• 3:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is the exact book you need to read in your
• 3:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: to see that everyone feels the way you do, but even if you're not in your 20s, I think that this is just an excellent reflection of someone who had a really cool job and which just living a normal life while doing it.
• 3:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: The observations and the details that she includes in here makes me so glad that her co-workers told her to write all of this down which turned into her memoir.
• 4:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: She talks more about it in this episode and this conversation was such a highlight of my summer.
• 4:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: I cannot wait for her to come back for her next book about summer camps at Seams.
• 4:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so excited because talking to backfutally talking to a friend I hadn't seen in a long time, she really is like your friend's cool older sister who you also find out isn't incredibly kind and just so fun to talk to.
• 4:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Especially because she felt so nostalgic about Gamma Rose in the way we all do.
• 4:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: You are going to love her just as much as you love her books.
• 4:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if you love her in this episode and you haven't read her books, hopefully they will find their way on your shelves.
• 4:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, without further ado, here is Backdory Stein.
• 4:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: So back spectacular things is the book club pick for where you read I will follow and it actually came out Almost is it over a year ago now that it's come out.
• 4:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: What is it like having the story in this book out in the world for this long?
• 4:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's been an amazing year.
• 4:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was exciting when it came out last year of course, but this year with the World Cup I think I unintentionally have been swept up in America's like discovery of sock.
• 5:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah
• 5:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: and so that's been really exciting just to see how often spectacular things is somehow linked.
• 5:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: To this world cup and then also the Women's World Cup next year in Brazil is happening.
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's really fun to just be linked with all of these amazing players in like the real world of soccer with a novel.
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I, you know, I actually, when I picked this as the book, I have to mean, I didn't know the world cup was about to happen.
• 5:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: I did not plan for a soccer book to be our book.
• 5:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll pick, like, to align with that.
• 5:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: It just really was a happy, happy accident, because I'm not, I'm not much of a sports girl, but I just felt like it was just, it was kiss meant that it, that it all lined.
• 5:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: But,
• 5:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like this book is going to be relevant for some time, like especially with the bulk up this year you said, next year in Brazil and then in 2028 the Olympics because the Olympics is a big part of this book.
• 5:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I feel like it's it's going to reach out for years to come with this one.
• 5:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks, Haley.
• 6:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and also, you know, the day that inspired this book was when the U.S. from his natural team won the World Cup in 2019.
• 6:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: So to me, it's always been a soccer book, but to my editor, it's always been a sister book, and I really think it's a marriage of the two.
• 6:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's, you do not have to love soccer.
• 6:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you do, I think it's great, but also I've had so many people.
• 6:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's probably my favorite compliment is they're like, I don't like soccer, or I don't care about sports, and I love this book.
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I love hearing that.
• 6:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just love it as a backdrop which we can get into in a bit because it's not that I didn't care about talk or not care.
• 6:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't have one way or the other but I was so invested in this and I think in part because like I think that a Gilmore audience feels this way as you're kind of invested in someone who is invested in excellence.
• 6:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I think that that's what I really love to bow all of the women in this book.
• 6:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: But as in terms of like having come out and paperback, do you have like a preference of like hardback versus paperback?
• 6:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, I love a paperback because I just feel like my favorite time to read is in the summer because you can find a beach or you can just sit outside and you get away from your phone and it's just easier to do with a paperback in my opinion.
• 7:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: And also you know you can get two paperbacks for one hardback so even better.
• 7:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: And also if I like lose a paperback or if I lend it to someone and they don't give it back I can deal with it better.
• 7:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I actually have a hard time because like I said to you before I like amitated so much of this book There's something in me that kind of like breaks a little bit when I write in a hard back paperback I can not like tear it up like I don't want to destroy it, but like I feel like a lot more friendly with it Then I do like a hard back which feels like it needs to be pristine a little bit Yeah, they're a little more precious also because you spent more money on it so
• 7:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of the me and the cricket of the book world, if you will.
• 7:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I can't wait to talk about spectacular things because it was one of my favorite books that I've read recently.
• 7:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Definitely one of my favorite books at the year.
• 7:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: It got recommended to me last year by another author among Harry Keyak, because I always ask authors what as a book they would recommend for Gamma Girl's Fans, and she said this one.
• 7:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I immediately purchased it, and it sat on my shelf, and then I just looked at it one day, and I was like, you.
• 7:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to pick you and I picked it up and I read it in about two nights as one of those books I couldn't put down, didn't want to do anything else in my life, but read this book and find out what happened because it's so you primate so well with the perfect beginning and before you go back to the true beginning and I just absolutely loved it.
• 8:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Can't wait to talk about it.
• 8:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I equally can't wait to talk about some controversial opinions about Gilmore Girls that were sent my way.
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
• 8:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
• 8:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, let's get into this right now.
• 8:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is why we're really here.
• 8:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is why we're really here.
• 8:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: But before we get into it, I do want to give our audience a chance to learn more about you before maybe you can defend yourself with your I know.
• 8:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll say before we get into it.
• 8:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I do not like before it before it cancelled, you know.
• 8:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 8:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: But Gilmore Girls came out in October 2000.
• 8:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: What were you writing in the year 2000?
• 8:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, the year 2000, so I was a freshman in high school.
• 8:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was writing thesis statements, non-stop.
• 8:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 8:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's the year you learned how to write a thesis statement in a five paragraph essay.
• 8:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 8:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: So when I think of ninth grade, I think of having like, you know, my worry at Chilton moment of like, wow, high school's gonna be really hard.
• 9:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: I had this English teacher, Mr. Kowsky, and I'd always sailed through English classes, and it was the first time that he was like, this thesis statement could be better.
• 9:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: This paragraph could be better, and I was like,
• 9:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: What?
• 9:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, people say I'm good at this.
• 9:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I really put my heart and soul into these clear upward spiral thesis statements.
• 9:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Did that like inspire you to write?
• 9:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Did you already know that you wanted to write or did this discourage writing, you know?
• 9:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, I knew I loved writing.
• 9:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I was always writing, but no, it wasn't until junior year of high school that I had another English teacher who pulled me aside and was like, this is something and I kind of blew me away that he, he was like the all-star English teacher and so for him to like, he was so cool.
• 9:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: I thought he was so cool and for him to be like, you're like, this is a cool essay that you wrote.
• 9:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was the first time I think there was like an invitation to take myself seriously.
• 9:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: especially the cool teacher when you get told that you're talented by the cool teacher.
• 10:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's it.
• 10:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, but also to be clear like he wasn't cool cool.
• 10:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: He was like nerdy cool.
• 10:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah, yeah, that's okay.
• 10:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like just take there.
• 10:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, yeah, as I could as like a gifted honor student like the the teacher that was like felt like it was like not like one of you.
• 10:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
• 10:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: There was like not that kind of no.
• 10:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly, exactly, because I'm also like a gifted honor student and took all AP classes, so like those were the cool teachers to me.
• 10:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: I believe it.
• 10:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much.
• 10:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was but I was buddy young where I go more, which speaking of, Rory is known in high school for being like a book lover, bookworm, very studious, very interested in academics, but was back like in high school, beyond being told that she could make it as writer.
• 10:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was definitely a sporty person, but then I was actually...
• 10:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was just listening to something and they were talking about how the problem with sports is that it's usually kids first exposure to like anything in a team or group dynamic.
• 11:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so a lot of times it's like if you love being part of a team, they just keep putting you into sports.
• 11:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it might be that you would also thrive in a theater environment or something like that.
• 11:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like,
• 11:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's why I always had this like yearning to be part of a school play because I just also have been part of a team and why I also being a writer in some ways is like my dream job and in other ways the worst job possible for me because I'm by myself all the time.
• 11:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, your team comes after you're done with your draft.
• 11:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's almost like a reward.
• 11:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a really good reward.
• 11:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: What were some books that you were reading at this time that you were interested?
• 11:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe like your bus book and worries words?
• 11:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my bus, that's so hot.
• 11:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Some are sisters, but I drew to bloom.
• 11:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: That was the first book that when I was in ninth grade, that was the first book that I was recommending to people and they were like, why are you reading something that wasn't assigned in class?
• 11:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, cause they talk about sex and then you got to read it.
• 11:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: You were like, I broke the mold.
• 11:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I got this.
• 11:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: I got this girl's yeah, but I mean, I was still Judy bloom But it was like Judy bloom you know adult Judy bloom.
• 11:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was so exciting.
• 12:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: It just felt like I can't you know Is that quintessential moment of opening a book and being like I don't think adults want me to know about this Oh, I love that.
• 12:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that so much So speaking of worry still she's really guiding a lot of this conversation
• 12:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And season seven that the show really ends with Brory heading out to what was then Senator Obama's presidential campaign, which is another thing that y'all have in common working in tandem.
• 12:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I forgot about the former president.
• 12:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 12:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yours, of course, being non-fiction, hers being a fictional, which then turned out to be very real, presidential campaign, because you worked in the White House as one of his denographers.
• 12:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I had a really hard time coming up with a very simple question to this, because I'm also in the middle of reading your memoir in the corner of the oval, which
• 12:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Excellent title, simply amazing.
• 12:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love to that so much that in itself.
• 12:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm having really hard time coming up with I was like, how do I ask her a question that just sums up this entire memoir that I'm reading here?
• 12:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if you could tell our audience a little bit how you got started in that role.
• 13:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, can I tell you something before that just because the timing is too weird?
• 13:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: So you said 2007 was Roy, so in the spring of 2008, then candidate Obama came and spoke at my college graduation at the last second.
• 13:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: He wasn't supposed to.
• 13:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Really?
• 13:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Senator, yeah, Senator Ted Kennedy was supposed to give the speech and he felt ill and so he tapped candidate Obama to come to my college and
• 13:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: He gave a speech at my graduation and I was choosing between taking an advertising job in New York or teaching job in New Jersey.
• 13:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And Obama said, like, you are so lucky.
• 13:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: You got this great education.
• 13:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: What are you going to do with it?
• 13:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: You should give back.
• 13:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm sitting there, literally sweating in the sun, being like, I've been straddling this decision and he just gave me my answer.
• 13:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Even before I ended up working in the White House, he had already also shaped my path.
• 13:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I
• 13:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because I was in college so I wasn't watching Gilmore Girls as much.
• 13:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we so worry was maybe there.
• 14:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Fictionally.
• 14:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: She was there.
• 14:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: She was there.
• 14:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: She was there.
• 14:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 14:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: At your college graduation.
• 14:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's crazy.
• 14:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you could tell listeners how you got a job like that.
• 14:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, in 2011, I was working five part-time jobs in Washington, D.C., I had moved down there to be the temporary upper writing school teacher at Sylvain Friends and this independent school where the Obama girls attended, a lot of senators children attend, and I was also working at a coffee shop,
• 14:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: You were the Washington D.C. Kirk, you had every job.
• 14:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yes, I truly was, because people would come into creamer books and be like, I think I just saw you at Lulu, Lulu, me.
• 14:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that was me.
• 14:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 14:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I was working these five jobs.
• 14:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was horrible because none of the managers care about the other schedules.
• 15:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm trying to juggle way too much.
• 15:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: I plighted this other job because I'm looking for one full-time job.
• 15:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I plighted this job on Craigslist.
• 15:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a typing job at a law firm.
• 15:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: I go, it smells like tuna fish.
• 15:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, thanks, note, thanks.
• 15:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I blow off the second interview because I'm folding tank tops, poorly, little lemon, I have to stay late because my manager is like, you can't hack this.
• 15:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Blow off the second interview and receive an email shockingly.
• 15:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Again, this is through Craigslist, you know, like it just insane.
• 15:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's insane.
• 15:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they said, you know, you didn't even include a cover letter.
• 15:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: And at 24, I said, I think my resume speaks for itself because, again,
• 15:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: because it's so bold, so 24 and also just like so Craigslist, you know, I was like just open on a real website, sure.
• 15:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like who are you to ask for my cover letter Craigslist?
• 15:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: right and so then for this woman to actually respond and say you didn't show up for your interview was shocking and I said I'm so sorry I have to you know re-knit like this I don't have time in my schedule and she goes just for the record this is uh if you'd like to reconsider this is actually a job traveling with the president and I wrote back and said president of what and she said
• 16:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then a fourth of that point, yeah, at that point, it's like, okay, well now, I'm just going to have this, like, you know, have my nose rubbed in this incredible opportunity and not get it.
• 16:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then thankfully, they gave me another shot and I went in and interviewed with.
• 16:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: who would then become my boss Peggy.
• 16:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I became President Obama's sonographer for five years.
• 16:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I would record and transcribe any statements he made in front of the press or the press secretary made in front of the press, the daily briefing.
• 16:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then I, you know, the most fortunate thing was that I got to travel wherever he went.
• 16:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I flew on Air Force One.
• 16:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I had an assigned seat on Air Force One.
• 16:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we traveled the world.
• 16:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's, like, honestly, the memoir, the way that you tell these stories, like even just hearing you talk about it now, having read, a lot of it.
• 16:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's this, like, beautiful, spectacular, if you will, story of, like, that I think that so many women would love to read because the way that you, you're so vulnerable in your personal life, as well, throughout this.
• 17:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: that like at one point you're having this like a horrible experience with an exploit friend.
• 17:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: In the same way that I have reading Spectacular things, I was like, I have to have this feeling go away, I have to keep reading.
• 17:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: But then suddenly we're at a hotel and you're running on the Trudmonix, a present in Obama.
• 17:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, it's like this like kind of like a emotional bitplash that like you rarely get in a memoir that's just so, like, truly spectacular.
• 17:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think so many people would love to read about this.
• 17:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think that was what was so hard as I was caught in this like pretty toxic relationship and usually your friends when you're in that situation will be like just get away from him like just ignore him and it's like Okay, but like I'm seeing him on Air Force one and then on a rooftop in Paris so like it's kind of
• 17:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of hard unless I put my job, which then means I'm not running on a treadmill next to President Obama, which would be really sad.
• 17:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like what he used to do.
• 17:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's therefore smart and it's like you can't escape it.
• 18:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it's truly, I think, the idea of President Obama's stenographers already pretty.
• 18:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, buzzy in its own right, but I just think that the element of like, for lack of a better term, you're just a girl, you know, it's like you're just a girl working this job that sometimes it's just a job on other times it's quite cool to look over and have a panic attack because the president of the United States.
• 18:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think it's, you know, wherever you are in your 20s, you're still in your 20s and there's kind of no escaping that for better and for worse and.
• 18:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, just the other day I had this informational interview and this woman was like I have to tell you I just listened to your memoir and I was like that is not that is not that you are not coming to this We are not coming to the table as equals here.
• 18:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: That guy is so unfair But then she quickly divulges like her own road in her 20s and I think it is just like the universal truth that Your 20s are a great time to make mistakes and have a lot of fun and do all the things that if you do later in life They're gonna be way bigger repercussions
• 19:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: your 20s are kind of your time to figure out who you are and what you stand for and and sometimes that happens by being who you don't want to be.
• 19:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Was there anything that along that job that helped you like enhance your creative writing, whether that was something that you witnessed from the president himself or just being in that bubble of being in the White House?
• 19:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: the friends I made in the White House are incredible brilliant women that I wouldn't have met otherwise.
• 19:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's really cool that I just Craigslist it my way into this insane bubble of brilliance.
• 19:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so while I was there it was like I just you know you asked that question like seven different faces pop up of like
• 19:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I was friends with these female speed traders and they're writing his speeches.
• 19:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm transcribing them.
• 19:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's like they have all the writing skills and I'm just a typist.
• 19:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that being said, I was able to travel with the president.
• 19:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: They rarely did.
• 19:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I would get back from these trips and they would say, write it down.
• 19:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: You got to know, write it down.
• 20:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that was a huge part of why I had such a big record of my five years, was because I was writing it down in real time, because I felt accountable to my friends, who were in the White House and also, you know, I was in my 20s.
• 20:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: If someone else had that job, and I had to hear about it, I'd be like, what?
• 20:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: I want to know everything about it.
• 20:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's so crazy.
• 20:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Again, if anyone wants to read your memoir, which they should, from the corner of the oval, be sure to pick that up and to devour it in the same way that I am.
• 20:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I have a little visitor that, leading into spectacular things, marrying it to Gilmore Girls, and it's called Spectacular or not.
• 20:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's list of things and you'll tell me if it's Spectacular, if it's not.
• 20:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Wearing a bow in your ponytail.
• 20:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Spectacular.
• 20:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Running away to a small town to make a new life on your own terms.
• 20:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Spectacular.
• 20:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Your 17-year-old boyfriend builds a car for you.
• 20:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Spatacular, running into the ocean at midnight to reset, not spectacular insane, unless you live in the Caribbean, but yeah.
• 20:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's spectacular.
• 21:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
• 21:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, of course it's spectacular, but having done it during the day and then it's just like, you know, you're boyfriend
• 21:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 21:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: You could say no.
• 21:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, yeah, I mean, but then I was just like, yeah, but then you could sell it.
• 21:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 21:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 21:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what we can call that mid playing the Olympics because your teammate was injured.
• 21:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Haley, spectacular.
• 21:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can't miss it.
• 21:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Dropping out of you.
• 21:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's exactly how you learn.
• 21:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I feel, I, I, a lot of these if you've read spectacular things really do apply to both Gilmore Girls.
• 21:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the book, what you'll soon find out.
• 21:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: But let's stop, let's stop teasing you back and let's, let's, let's talk about Gilmore Girls.
• 21:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's what we're here for.
• 21:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's what you're excited about.
• 21:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I want to know what your history with the show is.
• 21:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, when did you first start watching what was that like for you?
• 21:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, I mean, what a dream scenario.
• 21:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: It came out when I was a freshman in high school.
• 22:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I have a younger sister who's seven years younger.
• 22:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then I have a mom who thought Luke was super hot.
• 22:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so the three of us would watch it every week.
• 22:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it was, you know, like you couldn't, you couldn't watch it all at once.
• 22:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was once a week.
• 22:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it was so exciting.
• 22:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it was a really, I mean, you know, I was a freshman in high school.
• 22:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: So this is when I'm really supposed to be pulling away in a lot of ways I was.
• 22:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then it was once a week, the three of us would sit on a couch.
• 22:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then it was always weird if I was like, can my friend, you know, watch it with us?
• 22:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they'd be like, I guess.
• 22:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: But this is kind of our thing.
• 22:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 22:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: But you know, it was such a like sacred time.
• 22:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then my dad would come in.
• 22:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And my dad would pretend he wasn't interested.
• 22:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: But then somehow he was like, was always deeply invested and knew exactly the status of Lorela and Luke's situation.
• 22:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
• 22:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 22:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's so dad.
• 22:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Did it affect your relationship with your mom like getting to watch this with her because you said it's like that time When you kind of like pull away a little bit like become your own person.
• 22:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I mean I and even with my sister I think it meant something different for each of us definitely any sort of kissing was so I just wanted to die
• 22:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: we weren't having like those open conversations but especially when you bring in Emily and we all thought Emily was so funny and just like those different dynamics and it was grim we would bring it up at the dinner table all the time and my brother was always deeply confused.
• 23:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: He never wanted to come in for the star-style out.
• 23:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: He was a senior in high school, so definitely not.
• 23:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: What drew you to the early seasons, because I asked your publicist if you had any interesting gunmore girls, it wasn't required.
• 23:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: But you sent back a long paragraph of like so much details about your history with gunmore girls, which I loved reading was so much fun.
• 23:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: But you did say that you preferred the early seasons two worries, college days.
• 23:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: What drew you to the early seasons versus college?
• 23:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's nice.
• 23:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's very fun to see Yale and see Roy at Yale, but I also just love Stars Hollow so so much and the broader cast of characters feels like family and you get to know them so well.
• 23:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I just loved it being contained.
• 23:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And also probably, you know, a weird thing about where it was in my life, where it was.
• 24:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: that everything felt like it was expanding, and my brother was going away to college.
• 24:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I probably just loved it.
• 24:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was like, no, everyone just stay right here.
• 24:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And also, I can't stand Logan Huntsburger.
• 24:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: So then what he, you know, his presence was unwelcome in my book.
• 24:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so that actually perfectly leads into my next question, which is that you despise Logan Huntsburger.
• 24:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like I do need to disclose before we go for that.
• 24:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I am Team Logan, but that does not change anything between us back.
• 24:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Don't you worry.
• 24:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it has to, and then we just have to dig into it a little bit more.
• 24:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: you despise Logan Huntsberger with something that you said and all things Huntsberger, but you wanted more from Tristan.
• 24:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Can you tell me more about why you were intrigued by one over the other?
• 24:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because a lot of people say that they feel like same character different fonts, but can you tell me why you liked one of them over the other?
• 24:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, a couple of things.
• 24:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: One, Tristan, we meet Tristan when they're younger.
• 24:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think I just wanted the flirtation a little bit more because they just have one kiss.
• 25:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: And Logan is able to like kind of upend Roy's entire life in a way that I don't love.
• 25:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And Tristan, it's like there's a way, like I love how they spar.
• 25:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then I didn't feel like we got enough of like all the reasons why this wouldn't work.
• 25:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like it almost was like just kind of came in and so filled that role of Tristan, even though Chad Michael Murray was going to Dawson's Creek, so we had to, we had to say farewell to him.
• 25:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Forgot about that.
• 25:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: The WB, the power of the WB.
• 25:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he just slid right over to a different show.
• 25:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: But no, I, I like agree.
• 25:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I really liked what was happening between Marie and Tristan in that first season.
• 25:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: that it felt like this intriguing side of like these people that she hated and she softened to him.
• 25:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of people felt that was like her like priming for like the Logan Hansberger character that came along later.
• 25:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I will say whenever I talk to people who grew up in New England, which I imagine you did, they know you did not feel like.
• 26:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: No outside of feeling.
• 26:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, maybe the Northeast is quite like that general area that really don't like the Logan Huntsburg character and a lot of them say it's because they went to school.
• 26:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, yeah, I was going to say he's so New England.
• 26:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like he is like the epitome of like that New England guy that you just don't like.
• 26:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I feel like that's pretty similar amongst authors who like went to school there.
• 26:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I went to college at New England so that that totally tracks.
• 26:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, can you please tell me all the reasons why you like him because now I'm like, did I not watch this closely?
• 26:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, you know, I'm not, I'm both alone and not alone in this, like people really, really hate Logan, and my early days of talking about Logan, it was mostly people who hated him.
• 26:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's in part, it's kind of hard to explain because I fell in love with him at the age of 15, like 13, 14, 15, and so who am I now to watch this any differently than she did?
• 26:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, what does this service to her to, like, suddenly not be?
• 26:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Misses Logan hunts for you anymore?
• 26:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: because we actually went through the series and rewatched it on our Patreon.
• 27:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when we got to a certain point, he got the new title that we decided, which is he's a Yakovosar because of a lot of the decisions he makes in terms of having an adult relationship in your 20s, like some of the decisions he makes, and things that he leans back on in terms of his family.
• 27:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: We call him a Yakovosar, especially in the revival when he's cheating on his fiance.
• 27:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: But even going back further.
• 27:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think that
• 27:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: When I was younger, I just really liked the idea of like this like guy who kind of just rolls in has the same sort of banter as you do like they like kind of like when they that first conversation they have they kind of just like match with like he sees it as like kind of a game between the two of them.
• 27:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: and she's quite upset about it but it's he's just so intriguing and I feel like it was really well met the two of them they like kind of like had the same sort of background hers in a very different way just in the sense that like she could have had this had lower life stayed.
• 27:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it just kind of the friction there and season five really intrigued me also he was quite cute.
• 28:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: He was cute.
• 28:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Great, so.
• 28:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: What am I to do?
• 28:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, like they jump off a scaffolding together, it feels like Titanic, which is my favorite movie.
• 28:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: So like that whole thing, like the U-Jump by Jump Jack, like I was like, oh my gosh, it's Jack Dawson.
• 28:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: So there's just like something that's very intriguing to that to me.
• 28:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Also it felt like the first person who kind of treated her like an adult, and like this adult relationship.
• 28:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: who didn't idolize her right off the bat, which was quite interesting, and then later when his family explodes at her, he comes back to her and apologizes to her directly, and doesn't believe anything that his family said, which is a plus for him, I think, that he didn't let that guide his relationship.
• 28:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now I just feel like I'm trying to make points to sell you on this back.
• 28:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, I mean, you make good points.
• 28:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think the biggest one is just who are we to disregard our 15-year-old cells.
• 28:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because that's why I love Dean.
• 28:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because I was like, oh, man, I was like, head over and I know you don't like Dean.
• 28:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was a big, that was a big bomb that you just dropped here.
• 29:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: But you love it.
• 29:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, I love it.
• 29:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: You just, when I was 15, it was just like that is,
• 29:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: who you want as your boyfriend for me.
• 29:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that was my high school boyfriend.
• 29:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like I had like the sweetest high school boyfriend.
• 29:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I would have been rather duplicitous if I was like team Jess and then dating a dean in real life.
• 29:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was like 100% team dean on Gilmore Girls in real life.
• 29:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And obviously it didn't get me that far, but.
• 29:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
• 29:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, but I agree.
• 29:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I can get behind that, like, this was your high school, like who am I to say that I can love Logan as a 15 year old, but look at you and be like Dean, you never recovered from that.
• 29:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I totally understand but I will say that you are the one of two authors who have come on and said that you are team Dean, the second one having just was my last episode.
• 29:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're whatever team you want to be.
• 29:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I will say most authors are Team Jess and I think of course book in your back pocket Yep, I love no one except for you sort of vibes, but I love that your team Dean even if we don't agree But what is it that like 15-year-old back was like that's my man
• 30:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: He was tall, he was cute, he loved Rory, like recognized that she was the smarter of the two and just held her up that much more because of it.
• 30:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he had such a cute relationship with Lorelie that I loved.
• 30:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so that felt very safe and comforting to me because it was this idea of like, wow, you can have a boyfriend and instead of it being like, you have two separate lives that you bring them together and everyone's kind of,
• 30:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: happier that he's around.
• 30:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: He changes her water bottle all the time.
• 30:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but he recognizes that that relationship's really important to Roy.
• 30:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 30:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was the only one who did that.
• 30:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
• 30:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
• 30:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 30:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: See, just, I'm still not Team Jess.
• 30:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: I still can't go.
• 30:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I can't get behind Jess as a love interest, but as a character.
• 31:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Great.
• 31:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: You need, I mean, you need a Jess as a character.
• 31:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: You have to have a Jess.
• 31:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I did start watching the show in Season 5.
• 31:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because I caught it on the WB and then I realized you could go back and watch on ABC Family.
• 31:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, I was first introduced to Logan.
• 31:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, that's huge.
• 31:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 31:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: That I think that's like a big part of this.
• 31:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 31:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 31:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And for you, the first boy that you were introduced to was Dean.
• 31:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm saying like it was established as we fell in love with the show we fell in love with the boys who introduced us to the show as well.
• 31:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, but thanks so much sense.
• 31:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: How do you feel about the conversation?
• 31:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because like on social media, one of like the fastest ways to go viral is to talk about Dean and how much he sucks or if you like him, the people like this is rage-baiting.
• 31:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: How do you feel about that sort of conversation if I don't understand how anyone can hate Dean until he has an affair, but until I work because he's like fighting just why people like in the I'm thinking of the early seasons a couple of examples are like in the episode where worries left at home because Emily and Laura like go to the spot together Dean comes over even the worry told him not to before this was like before Jess came over and he starts yelling at her about it and
• 32:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of like, for us, Dean has a lot of justification in his actions of like, he shows up and Jess is there, of course he's going to get mad.
• 32:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: But he yells a lot, like his reactions are not always the best.
• 32:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: She sometimes afraid to tell him things because of his reaction.
• 32:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like when she breaks her arm she writes him a letter because she knows he's gonna get really mad about it And so I think there's this sense of like a lot of the times she says don't be mad or it seems like she's kind of Inticipating his sort of reaction and then when he breaks up with her at the dance marathon He does do it in front of everyone while yelling at her
• 32:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: did she kind of deserve it because she was kind of leading him on to be decided but a lot of it is just his reactions to things end up being quite loud and aggressive so like that's kind of what it is but as we made our way through the series together we were like he's a teenager like he is having teenage level reactions to these things.
• 33:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: that's such a great read and that's also like he's a teenager in the early odds.
• 33:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like it's like I think none of that even.
• 33:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I it's such a great close reading of it that I I think because it was the water I was swimming in.
• 33:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't pick up on that.
• 33:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like it was just like yeah, that's how boys behave.
• 33:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and this is like us, the two of us, me and my coos in our 30s, like analyzing this teenager and being like, this is not healthy, but it's also what sort of 17 year-old boys going to have really healthy reactions to things like that, especially when this guy is like literally stepping in and trying to do a real girlfriend very obviously.
• 33:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: So like we get what he was a little angry, but
• 33:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was reading a lot of YA romances when we were rewatching season 1 and I was like, he's just such a YA hero.
• 33:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I totally understand seeing teen him and not like wanting to change much and cherry picking out his affair.
• 34:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, like let's get rid of that.
• 34:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: But again, it's like it's those first few seasons that are just like so deeply imprinted because then after after the fourth season, I was in college.
• 34:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it was just a different story.
• 34:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: She went to college.
• 34:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so to do.
• 34:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that y'all kind of like tracked with each other like that.
• 34:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and neither of us were watching much TV, we were just making some good and bad decisions.
• 34:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, as you should.
• 34:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you said that you and your sister often referenced Kirk still to the day.
• 34:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do you have a favorite of Kirk's job or like a Kirk situation that you like to reference with your sister?
• 34:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: The cat.
• 34:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: The cat.
• 34:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: When he has the cat.
• 34:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 34:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Cat Kirk really just cracks us up and then it's funny because there's another person in my neighborhood, just a neighbor named Greg and he's so much like Kirk.
• 34:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: So whenever my sister comes to visit, she's like, are we going to see Kirk?
• 34:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it really is like, it become like such a world into itself that like Gilmore Girls is so in the zeitgeist because you could tell someone like, oh my gosh, they belong in stars hollow.
• 34:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: And more often than not, they're going to like, oh my gosh, you're so right because it's just like a shorthand that's created.
• 35:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Did you expect that when you were, I guess a freshman in high school, this would be a show that you'd still be talking about years and years later.
• 35:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, I think I was probably to self-involve to think about what shows I'd be watching later, but I do know that like in every chapter, since college, I go back to Gilmore Girls.
• 35:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And usually it's right at like the end of fall beginning of winter when I start to get really sad that it's winter.
• 35:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Also, I mean, now I have a partner, but before that, it was like after every breakup, it was like, we're just gonna put our head down and watch Gilmore Girls for the next few months, it's gonna be fine.
• 35:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I have like distinct memories of when I was teaching, and when I was working in the White House, just burrowing deep into Gilmore girls.
• 35:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I love that.
• 35:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's just such a cozy place to be when like the worst things are happening to you.
• 35:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's just go to Star's Hall over nothing else all that bad.
• 35:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: They can't even have a real murder.
• 35:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a phony murder.
• 35:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: But to that, do you have a Gilmore girl that you relate to the most or a favorite that you maybe don't want to relate to, but you love them the most?
• 36:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Probably lore lie, even though when I go back and rewatch, sometimes she's a lot, but I'm a lot.
• 36:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I think that's probably why I'm like, oh, okay.
• 36:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: We just we talk so much.
• 36:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love Emily, but I don't think I have that much in common with her.
• 36:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 36:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I admire Roy, but no.
• 36:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think of the three of them.
• 36:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, Laura Lies.
• 36:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Just a little bit out there.
• 36:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're all just a little bit out there.
• 36:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 36:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: We were like to Laura Lies, but I feel like you also follow Roy's path, really, where she was headed at the end of the series.
• 36:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we feel like maybe Laura Lies son, Lori Moon.
• 36:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, maybe.
• 36:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
• 36:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: When I think of Roy, I just think of like the smartest girl on the room who like Does and doesn't have to try to just be the smartest girl on the room and I've always had to try really hard So in that way, I don't I have a hard time relating to her
• 36:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, definitely.
• 37:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I totally say that.
• 37:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to be her so bad, but I was like, I have to try too hard too to get to where she's at.
• 37:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can't just casually get into Yale, honestly.
• 37:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Which also, I mean, she does spend a lot of time studying because I was just about to say, I wonder if they could have done a better job in the show and it's like, no, she does spend a lot of time studying but you still just know how smart she is.
• 37:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's like one of her personality traits is that she's just so smart and so special.
• 37:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's why when Logan comes long, I'm like, he doesn't really treat her like like the way that Dean ingested.
• 37:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: That is refreshing.
• 37:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: This really, I am just going to have to go back and watch all of the seasons.
• 37:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, sure.
• 37:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, let me know.
• 37:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 37:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: When you get to the Logan seasons, and I'm going to walk you through the best parts of it.
• 37:38
  [UNKNOWN]: Okay.
• 37:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: But you did mention that you were secretly attracted to Luke while you're watching that's in high school, but it felt inappropriate because of the age difference.
• 37:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: But now the age difference and my mom had already claimed him and I was like, oh, like, I think the same person my mom is attracted to is attractive.
• 37:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, that is very uncomfortable.
• 37:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, we can't be there.
• 38:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so you're immediately latched on to Dean.
• 38:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Could you really?
• 38:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 38:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, she can't be into someone too young.
• 38:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it really just, you guys split away.
• 38:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: I just love, I mean, I'm still such a, I love his gruffness, I love his heart exterior and then he's just always doing the sweetest things and coming over and fixing things and also just like cooking all the time like I think just subconsciously it's like that is the most attractive thing and he just does all of these really sweet deeds without ever wanting any sort of attention for it.
• 38:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, except for just wanting her attention.
• 38:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but he doesn't clamor for it.
• 38:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, he's just steady at either the whole time.
• 38:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I love, I think I also love that he's like the straight man, right?
• 38:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, and he can hold his own comedically, but at the same time it's like, he's just there for them to just like throw their zingers and he's part of it, but also just like, I know this is your show.
• 38:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
• 38:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like I feel like he just like early on they really decide who he is and like they discover his like voice really early in the show that I feel like he just sticks in that like absolute straight delivery.
• 39:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: The only times when he gets maybe a little romantic is with Laura Lyon.
• 39:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's nice to see that softness.
• 39:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he has his own like quick one liners just totally deadpan that I love too because it's not like it's like he's boring Like he's he's playing ball with them, too.
• 39:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's just letting them hit the homers.
• 39:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Also, this is not nice of me to say But whenever he would take off his hat like whenever he had to get dressed up and wear like a button down I was like never mind No, never mind my mom can have him.
• 39:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes Yeah, then he puts a hat back on and you're like oh and there's Luke days.
• 39:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, how did you feel when he and the really broke up?
• 39:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: They end up season six
• 39:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm sure I don't remember it happening.
• 39:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure I was devastated, but also it's just like the whole time.
• 39:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: I had enough trust in the writers that it was like, you wouldn't do this to us.
• 39:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like you love us.
• 39:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: You would not actually like you have to do this because you have to do it, but it's not going to last.
• 39:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why do you think that a Gilmore girl's lover would love to read your book?
• 39:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Spectacular things.
• 39:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: I guess now that I'm thinking about it, because I just ripped off the whole concept from Gilmore girl, which is not dawning on me now.
• 40:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, a teenage...
• 40:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Mom runs away from her narcissistic parents and starts a whole new world pulling herself out from her bootstraps being like super-wily, super ambitious and raises not one but two daughters
• 40:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: But the eldest daughter Mia is super responsible, very much treated like a partner and also both daughters embody all the dreams that the mom didn't get to live, you know, because she became a mom instead so Mia the mom was this incredible soccer player in high school.
• 40:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: could have gone on to play division one.
• 40:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: We envision that then she would play professionally and instead she has these babies.
• 40:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so she's still got all of that like competitive ruthlessness and so she fosters that passion in her two kids and it's like I'm gonna make you guys great soccer players.
• 41:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: So just the way that Laura lies, like, I didn't go to Harvard, you're going to go to Harvard, and you're also definitely not going to go to Yale because I hate Yale because my dad loves Yale.
• 41:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
• 41:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like that was very much.
• 41:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I just ripped the whole thing off Gilmore girls.
• 41:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for bringing that to my attention, Haley.
• 41:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can shut this down right now, and we're done, and that's it.
• 41:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, I just feel like it's something that I love with this book club is like finding something that people quite love, like a concept, or themes, and just like pulling it off in a completely different direction, because you learned very early on in the book that, like very first chapter, that Mia, who is
• 41:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: just had a baby.
• 41:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: She named it after her mother and they addressed the fact that their mom is no longer with them.
• 41:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I think this introduces this kind of interesting idea of like having a sister, but then becoming almost the mother figure to the daughter so that in a lot of ways,
• 41:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: looking at Rory as the other, like you said, like partner, a parental figure sometimes to her own mother, what would that be like if she really did have the true mother ripped away from her and had to use those skills to raise her younger sister.
• 42:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the sacrifice that that involves and the ambition that still exists in the both of them that just completely deviates from
• 42:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And of course soccer.
• 42:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's no soccer in Gilmore Girls.
• 42:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: There is no soccer in Gilmore Girls.
• 42:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, that's true.
• 42:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's just mine.
• 42:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I will say it's like as much as we go to Star's Hollow to feel better and to feel comfort and to feel familiar and to feel seen.
• 42:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I felt that way when I went to the U.S. Women's National teams, Ticker Taper in New York after they won the World Cup.
• 42:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was so ecstatic to be there.
• 42:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, how do I spend as much time here as possible?
• 42:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so it's sort of like immersing myself in instead of stars hollow, I call the fictional town victory, and it's in Maine, and it's the same idea of like, how do I just get to live here for a while?
• 43:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because I don't really want to look too deeply into reality right now.
• 43:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I love the way that you say that it's like, how do I get to stay in this experience that I'm loving and pull that pull myself further out of that?
• 43:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that concept.
• 43:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: What was the first idea that you had for this novel?
• 43:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what did you then do with it?
• 43:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Would you immediately do with that idea?
• 43:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, my first thought, I knew I had sisters because I think teammates and sisters, there's a ton of parallels there where it's your built in competitor in a lot of ways.
• 43:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I have a sister.
• 43:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: She and she's significantly younger.
• 43:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: She's seven years younger and actually, I think because of that, I knew she was my.
• 43:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know because I was seven with a horrible bull haircut the same one that my brother had No, and then out comes this adorable baby and then I guess on the second go-round with a girl my mom figured out Oh, you part her hair on the side and you put in like a really cute perret and it was just like Caroline was just always the cutest kid and I was just like this, you know, forgotten ugly ducklings
• 44:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh, you're such a middle child.
• 44:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: I've said a middle child.
• 44:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: But that being said, it's just like a teammate, my sister knows me really well, knows how to push my buttons, knows how to push me further and farther than anyone else.
• 44:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Even when I was telling her about the concept for spectacular things, she was like, I don't know if enough people care about soccer.
• 44:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Which is the same thing my editor told me which she was like I know that you're passionate about it But I just don't know if this is gonna have the traction that it needs and then what was so cool About my sister is that I sent her some pages and they were soccer pages You know, because I knew she would be fine with the relationship pages But I was like okay, this is why I want to write about soccer and she was like you love it so much that it actually makes it compelling And she did not play soccer.
• 44:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: She played field hockey
• 44:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, that was a very good feeling where I was like, okay, if I can convince her that this is a worthwhile way to spend some pages, then we're on the right track.
• 44:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I just think that's that I really love that parallel between sisters and teammates, and I'm still friends with my teammates from high school in college.
• 45:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: For that same reason that they just know you so well and on these different levels, and there's also this competitive element that I think makes things so sticky and complicated at times.
• 45:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's so interesting that you talk about the competitive element of it and like a lot of it has to do with like what your parents are feeding into your siblings like she got the beret and you did not and I can I know that that's a still a sticking point.
• 45:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: I imagine she doesn't wear much breadth now as a result, but it's so interesting to think about that competitiveness kind of disappearing a little bit when the mom disappears.
• 45:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: which isn't a spoiler.
• 45:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying not to spoil anything because this book has so many twists and turns that like you see coming on my aloft and you're like no no don't do this to me or that they suddenly appear and you're like what is going on and it's just so magnificent so I'm trying or spectacular if you well then I'm trying not to do too many spoilers but that competitiveness kind of gets like flipped on its head a little bit when it becomes just the two of them of like what are we competing for now and
• 45:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that you talk about your putting your sister into this, that she was okay with like the relationship pages and you wanted more of her feedback on the soccer pages, which at no point was this book ever sold to me on the basis of soccer, which I don't think it would have turned me off because I do.
• 46:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love a sibling story, I think being close with my siblings always makes me very invested in a sibling story, but mine would have wanted to know what was happening on the sister pages.
• 46:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're like,
• 46:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Where am I?
• 46:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Where am I in this book?
• 46:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I mean, there's there's plenty of that, too.
• 46:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, of course.
• 46:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Did she feel like when she read it?
• 46:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like she was like, this is inspired by me.
• 46:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Or did you try to separate the sisters enough that she didn't care.
• 46:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't recommend myself on page.
• 46:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think Caroline and Cricket are by any means a one to one, but I think it's more speaks to just like the saturation of real life in fiction, which is that I love this idea of using a poster of Steve Prefontein as motivation and Caroline had that poster in her high school bedroom.
• 46:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Really, yeah, and so she was like, you didn't even give me credit for that.
• 47:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, I don't know how I really give you credit for that But no, yeah But like thank you, and I will buy you a coffee.
• 47:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you can have a signed copy.
• 47:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's my particular things.
• 47:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah
• 47:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and also it was funny because this is such a sibling thing where I sent her a copy early on I was like here it is read it.
• 47:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let me know if you have any issues with anything and Caroline is a full-fledged adult with a lot of her own responsibilities She was very busy at work, so she didn't get to it So then she read it and she was like, I have some issues.
• 47:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, you're too late girl
• 47:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think you should read it when you had time.
• 47:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so yeah, I think it's the sibling relationship, like that friendship is so singular where it's just like I would never speak to any of my friends that way, even though I have such good friends, but it's like we are very loving and cruel on the same coin in the same day in the same minute.
• 47:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
• 47:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'm sure you've related to those memes where it's like you're absolutely having like the worst fight ever with your sister saying the coolest things to her than 20 minutes later.
• 48:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: You guys are going to get tight cooks from Donald's together.
• 48:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, not talking, but not talking.
• 48:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: But like you were asked, it's like, I'm going, do you want to come?
• 48:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: The best is when I had my baby and she was upset because Caroline is the baby of our generation.
• 48:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: She goes, you're just always hanging out with him now.
• 48:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not hanging out.
• 48:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm keeping him alive.
• 48:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: You might have been better than me.
• 48:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: That was your first.
• 48:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 48:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's amazing.
• 48:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Did she have kids of her own?
• 48:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: No.
• 48:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: I can't wait to just throw this all back in her face.
• 48:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah.
• 48:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can't wait.
• 48:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 48:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: How did your brother feel about this book?
• 48:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, see, did he read it?
• 48:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Did he experience these sisters and like those?
• 48:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are you?
• 48:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's y'all.
• 48:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, I think he feels I should not speak for him on this, but I will because I am as younger sister.
• 48:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I will say that he, I would think he probably feels a little left out because it's in a lot of ways, it's actually him and me, because we're only two and a half years apart.
• 49:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: So in a lot of way, it like my growing up and like all of crickets desired to like catch up to her big sister that was me trying to catch up to Zach and it was always I was trying to play with him in his friends and to his credit he always let me play but also he was determined to make me a very good athlete and so he was very tough on me and so all of my closest friends are like remember when we would play soccer in your backyard and Zach would let us score goals and then you would just touch the ball and he would shove you up.
• 49:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: he would think I'm trying to make you scrappy, which he did, but yeah, and so I actually, yeah, I just wrote this essay kind of giving him his due as far as how much I like worship him the same way that cricket really worships me, because he didn't get that in spectacular things.
• 49:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, in some ways, he, I guess you were Mia, he is Mia, Carolina's.
• 49:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Sure, I just, you know, in every interview, people are like, so you have a younger sister and I'm like, poor Zach, I also have an older brother.
• 49:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's very accomplished, great job.
• 50:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, great job, Zach.
• 50:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: We, here, here's his flowers, if he even likes flowers, maybe he likes flowers.
• 50:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, he probably likes Gilmore girls at this point.
• 50:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now he has his own daughter.
• 50:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: So he's gonna be watching Gilmore girls.
• 50:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ah, see, it all, it all comes back around, but what your next book is all about brothers, I'm sure.
• 50:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, I have to tell you something about the next book though, only because I was doing such a deep dive on you, is that it takes place at a main summer camp, and you were saying that you want to have a phone free summer, and I was like, that's the idea of summer camp, is that even now, even in, like way back in the day before phones, but even now, in 2020,
• 50:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Six.
• 50:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Even now, it's like, no, these kids get to have like seven weeks without cell phones.
• 50:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like that is the most magical thing.
• 50:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I am, yeah, I want to have a new cell phone summer and like that's part of like what like trying to read like physical copies of books and I'm trying to water color paint and hang out with my my niece and nephew a lot more and be at Hailey.
• 50:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just kind of so fun.
• 51:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it also is because my niece was trying to dance with me with both hands and she goes, put your phone down.
• 51:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I said, oh my god, okay.
• 51:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I will say this generation is so good about being like put your phone down, like they are like you're addicted and it's a and it's a disease and it's disgusting And I wasn't even on it.
• 51:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just did my hands.
• 51:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you phone down.
• 51:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 51:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh.
• 51:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm everything my whole life now So in terms of Liz Liz is a lot like Laura lie and like very distinctly herself and everything she does Trying to make her her way in a world that she didn't expect to end up in a mother before she was ready, but she really rose to the occasion in her very own way
• 51:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: What part of Liz do you love the most and what part of Liz really deeply frustrates you?
• 51:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love how she is so confident in figuring out a solution.
• 51:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: And she allows herself to feel sad when she has every reason to feel sad, but at the end of the day she's like, okay, like enough of that, let's figure this out.
• 51:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's extremely admirable.
• 51:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: What frustrates there are a couple of things that really frustrate me about Liz and I do, I love her.
• 52:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love her because she is so problematic.
• 52:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: I guess what frustrates me the most is that in not getting to live her own dream of becoming an amazing soccer player, she puts that on her daughters and to a degree, it's amazing because we all do that.
• 52:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like it's like we love something, we want everyone to love it.
• 52:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: That makes sense.
• 52:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: She does it to such a degree that I think it's actually like a little bit crippling for Mia and also even for Cricket and Cricket becomes this amazing soccer player but she thinks that being good at soccer is the reason why she's lovable because that's such a big piece of how she and her mom relate to each other.
• 52:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, so I think Liz could have done a better job at that and also she'd like doesn't have great taste in men, but she's also, you know, 18 when she gets into into trouble.
• 52:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, we can't win that against her.
• 52:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's good taste and men then.
• 52:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 52:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Or you go more as a good example of that.
• 52:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 52:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh.
• 52:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Shots fired.
• 52:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, you know, that's what happens when you have an affair when you're 19.
• 53:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, oh my god.
• 53:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: She was only 19 when they have that of wow.
• 53:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 53:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
• 53:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 53:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, technically he is as well.
• 53:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
• 53:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, I know.
• 53:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I know.
• 53:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm thinking.
• 53:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 53:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I didn't really see was that young when he got married.
• 53:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's so crazy.
• 53:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 53:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is quite crazy.
• 53:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 53:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're so right.
• 53:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: But in the, the element of this that you're talking about in terms of soccer that like she that's how she felt most like loved kind of breaks my heart because it makes me think about the note that she left her for her parents that like she's not done with soccer.
• 53:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's just changing the goal posts that she's like, I'm still lovable.
• 53:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just changing the way that that exists for me is kind of like how I'm breeding that note that she left for her parents now, which makes me want to
• 53:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's such a good connection, Ali.
• 53:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: I hadn't thought of that because I was only thinking in terms of cricket, but you're so right that it's like she got that she inherited that poor logic from her mom because her mom definitely experienced that with her own parents.
• 53:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it makes me stomachs me so sad for years and her beautiful daughters, but speaking to soccer, which I, I was not sold on this book being a soccer book.
• 54:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was mostly about sisters, and like the small town, and of course lays herself, and I accidentally picked it during the best time to read a soccer book, which is during the World Cup, congratulations to Spain.
• 54:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Was that the team you were reading for?
• 54:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was reading for every underdog of every game, so yeah, I was glad, I was glad Spain won, I wasn't reading for them the whole time, but I was glad they won.
• 54:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's one of those things that you were talking about before of your editor being like, I know you love soccer, but like that might not translate, but I immediately when you said that, I wanted to push back in the past to your editor to be like, but if she loves that in such a way, it's going to be conveyed in a passion that people can capture in a book.
• 54:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I'll read a book about anything if the person who wrote it is very passionate about what they're writing about.
• 54:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: and that was definitely the case here with you and soccer, which feels like in some ways like a third low sister, but like also like a second mom to the girls that like the way that soccer exists in the book because it's a setting, but it's also thematic, but it's also tension and friction and like ambition and also sacrifice between all of these characters, that it's not just any one thing.
• 55:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not just a sport.
• 55:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: The cricket is playing or that lays past onto her daughters.
• 55:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: So what was it about soccer that you wanted to include it in this way and in this book?
• 55:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think the reason why soccer has to be in this book is because it's just like the perfect metaphor for a reason Like it's why we use sports metaphors all the time is that so much of our lives are mirrored on a soccer field And that there's this sense of boundaries that do and do not exist and navigating that.
• 55:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was just thinking about when I was in high school like one of my signature moves.
• 55:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: is that I was very good at chasing the ball out of bounds and so it was just sort of like following through like you saw the ball was going out and it didn't matter because like maybe you would get there like maybe something weird happened maybe and like you would just always chase it out about and like it was worth the effort big enough times and I just think about carrying on with that metaphor and it's like
• 55:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Every time you think you're done, just taste a ball on a balance, like you don't know what's going to happen.
• 55:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think sports for me personally has been such a like guiding light of how I can best help myself.
• 56:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's interested me to my best friends, like it interests me to coaches who were like life mentors.
• 56:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: and it's just such like a joyful escape that again in 2019 it was like I just want to I want to spend time on this field and like we can build a whole world around this game and there can be really high stakes that extend way past the field but that are like you know planted right here
• 56:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: and also I think as far as cricket goes the younger sister and the goalkeeper.
• 56:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Usually in sports it's like you can have someone else that can do the same job as you, a goalkeeper, it's just a singular job and you've got to be such a nut to want to do it and I wanted to explore that kind of mentality more because I would never be a goalkeeper.
• 56:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, I wouldn't want, I don't want anyone kicking anything at me.
• 56:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, purpose.
• 56:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, but even just watching the world cup, every time a goal went in, I was so excited and also just like that poor keeper, that poor keeper, like they're just like, their stomachs and their, like, it's their whole night.
• 56:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's the field.
• 56:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 56:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's kind of what I think about when I watch sports is kind of like all of these people were once kids who loved his sport and it's like whether or not they had like helicopter parents who like you could have done better or like great game like afterwards like that's all I can think about like I just hope everyone has a good time.
• 57:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I also love that like it the way that you're talking about like it expanded into your life and became such a through line of like mentors and coaches and friends that even in your memoir that you had a soccer bag because you were getting on Air Force 1 for the first time and like someone's like oh you like soccer and I just like kind of like glued into that from spectacular things that I was like oh it's such like a beautiful sort of like connection that you can make with people Yeah, I was like the soccer playing English teacher stenographer as a real weirdo at the White House
• 57:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: the way that you're talking about like kind of like explaining soccer as a metaphor in your life I feel like you're so perfectly primed to a friend this book because there's so many metaphors that lives throws at them there's so many ways that they kind of live their life as if they're on a soccer field just from having their mom who is like so obsessed with that even the fact that they're named after soccer players
• 58:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: One of the mantras that they have throughout the book is you can only use your head if you keep your eyes wide open and I love to I like I'm someone who likes to write things on sticky notes while I'm writing and have it like just like kind of on my desk And that was something I wrote down that you can only use your head if you keep your eyes wide open I feel like that applies so perfectly to writing as well.
• 58:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is that something that you apply to your own writing?
• 58:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I try to, you know, it's a lot of doers I say, not as I do.
• 58:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, of course.
• 58:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, no, thanks for picking up on that.
• 58:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because when I hit that line, I was like, oh, because it is like, it's like, that's what you learn when you're learning to head a ball and soccer.
• 58:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, keep your eyes open.
• 58:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, this terrifying thing is coming right at my head.
• 58:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you want me to keep my eyes open.
• 58:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, that is not the natural response.
• 58:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, the natural response is to shut your eyes and wait for it to be over.
• 58:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think it's so cool to be like, no, you got to, you got to see what's coming.
• 58:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you can not shy away from this.
• 58:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: so i tried to i mean i guess it goes back to like keeping my eyes wide open like taking in as much as i can and observing as much as i can and writing as much down and not coasting but thank you for noticing that line because i remember being so excited
• 59:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's landed on it.
• 59:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: There were so many throughout this book.
• 59:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like I would actually have to show you how many lines I have underlined where I was like, when I like a line, I just write three exclamation points next to it.
• 59:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's the most frequently written thing in this book because I just, there's so many turns of phrase that you have.
• 59:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like I remember specifically when
• 59:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Mia and her partner are going to just do like the most normal things and they like go to TSA pre check and I think one of I can't I'm going to butcher it completely but you talk about like they had no idea that like we were doing the most illicit of drugs at that point because talking about the love between them.
• 59:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I just remember like highlighting that so much like any time I go through the book it kind of falls open to that page because it's so aggressively underlined that I think that one of the things that drew me the most to this book was the way that you wrote because it's so distinctly you which is something I want to pull for this book club because Amy Sherman Paladino has such a distinct way of writing.
• 1:00:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Haley, I feel like I'd be able to find your writing because it's so, it's so distinctly you and so gorgeous so that like a line like that that you loved.
• 1:00:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like that's that's one in a dozen of ones that like I could pull from that just I loved and I hoped that you were delighted by your own self having written it.
• 1:00:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like a real narcissist.
• 1:00:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, thank you so much.
• 1:00:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: No,
• 1:00:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: you know now I'm drafting this new book and so much of it is just sitting there being like I am not good at this.
• 1:00:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: I should apply to real jobs.
• 1:00:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I you know like and so then it is and I know I felt that way times 10 with spectacular things because I was post-partum.
• 1:00:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it was just like that much harder to dig into a creative space and so it does.
• 1:00:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Those victories are no joke because they come so far and few between these hours of just being like
• 1:00:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: the none of this is good, none of this is staying like that's all just going out and so it is really cool to hear you say that and I appreciate it because so much of it is kind of like rooting around like a truffle peg like just like in a big you know puddle of mud and shit being like where is it?
• 1:01:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's in here right?
• 1:01:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm in the right place.
• 1:01:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is where it's supposed to be.
• 1:01:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: So thank you for saying that.
• 1:01:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: that's kind of like what the writing is is like why are we doing this until we find that aha moment and you're like well now i'm just chasing and i find the next one because i love that one so much but throughout the novel something that i really loved was that cricket is the visualizer in me is the planner that like that is like something that hinders and helps them along the way that really thematically exist in both of them that they flip just a little bit and it doesn't work for them at all but i just really love that those were the past that they were on would you say that you're more of a visualizer or that you're more of a planner
• 1:01:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm a visualizer and all my best friends are vergos.
• 1:01:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that doesn't tell you everything you need to know.
• 1:01:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why would you need to plan anything?
• 1:01:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know.
• 1:01:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love it so much.
• 1:01:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And also I think my brother, he's very good at planning and like could be a tour guide in any city in the world.
• 1:02:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: having not even been to all of them.
• 1:02:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: He just somehow has this encyclopedia knowledge of every city in the world.
• 1:02:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm very good at just being like a passenger princess for better and for worse.
• 1:02:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I love I love being surprised and then as my best friend who is a Virgo and very good planner, she's just like, you're very enthusiastic and very appreciative of all the work I've done.
• 1:02:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that's all I need.
• 1:02:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: because I know that when I do it, it ends poorly and everyone's disappointed.
• 1:02:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, see, that's, you were the exact right audience then for a Virgo, because like, or like me, I'm not a Virgo, but I'm a Sagittarius, and so I do love a plan.
• 1:02:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love a Sagittarius.
• 1:02:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm partnered with one.
• 1:02:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, see, yeah.
• 1:02:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Again, I absolutely love subtracting other things.
• 1:02:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's one of my favorite books of the year.
• 1:02:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: It completely ripped me open in the same way that it absolutely healed me.
• 1:02:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I do wish that I could go through every single page of this book and compliment you on all of the best things that I absolutely love.
• 1:02:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: But that aside, what is next for you?
• 1:03:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: You hinted at a summer camp.
• 1:03:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is there anything that you can tell us about it other than summer camp vibes?
• 1:03:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: uh if this book is about if spectacular things is like my sister soccer book this is very much like my female friendship book so it's just really fun and it spans these two girls when they're 12 up until they're 30s and so I'm just loving it.
• 1:03:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: because it's, I mean, what's better than that?
• 1:03:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, to talk about like the arc of loving Gilmore girls in high school versus now, it mirrors that same kind of like, how important those friendships are.
• 1:03:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like, we didn't even talk about Rory and Lane, but just like that person who sees you in your fullness when you're young and what happens when you get older and they do and don't continue to see you that way.
• 1:03:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's such a sister vibe, but so different, because it's slightly removed from that as well.
• 1:03:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Removed and also, I mean, I have best friends that for whatever reason, we just have been kept in touch.
• 1:03:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: We had it falling out.
• 1:03:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that, I know that happens with sisters.
• 1:03:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: My sister and I've gotten into huge wicked fights, but I can't exist without making up, without reconciling.
• 1:04:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I do think there's a difference there for better and for worse, where I think it's all to our detriment that compared to romantic relationships where we're quicker to just be like,
• 1:04:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: longer friends.
• 1:04:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like you've never, I've never gone to like, I've never heard of anyone going to.
• 1:04:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: I've never gone to like friendship counseling, but like couples counseling that thing.
• 1:04:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I would say that sometimes friendship breakups are way more painful and haunting, totally haunting.
• 1:04:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And like a way that like you can't, you can't quite grieve it because it doesn't feel like you need to, but you definitely would feel that in the same way.
• 1:04:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hmm, oh my gosh, I'm so excited for that.
• 1:04:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: That sounds, I can't wait.
• 1:04:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: is it a world like you were saying like with soccer like you just wanted to stay in that does this summer camp world to feel the same?
• 1:04:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Very much so so last year when spectacular things came out I was doing a bunch of press for that book but also there's only seven weeks in a summer camp like in an overnight immersive summer camp experience so whenever I wasn't doing spectacular things stuff I was driving to these different summer camps and just spending a day with all these
• 1:05:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: and it was just like getting to be the ultimate camp interloper and then getting to compare them all.
• 1:05:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'd be like oh this one has like an amazing dining hall or wow they like are you using outhouses at this one like that's a choice you know like just like different approaches to a main summer camp experience all the kids were so happy at all these camps but it was just very fun and it was said then it was cool to cherry pick my favorite thing from each camp
• 1:05:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
• 1:05:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 1:05:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: That is so cool.
• 1:05:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's just like fun like research.
• 1:05:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like that's that wasn't an exciting time.
• 1:05:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: It really also feels like you can only use your head if you keep your eyes wide open because you're just out here experiencing it, like keeping your eyes wide open, seeing the outhouse, maybe deleting it from your book,
• 1:05:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, my camp does not have an outhouse and we thank you for that Although, I mean, it would be a great like think about the things that you could do with it.
• 1:06:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know But I actually was like this would be a great like like frustrating tension filled yeah To have that outhouse, but we'll just we'll just cut leave that for another book I know that me especially and all of our listeners will be waiting patiently for your next novel because I love this one so much but
• 1:06:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: The one question I ask all of the authors that come on and that is what is a book you would recommend for Gammock Rolls fans.
• 1:06:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Alright, I love this book.
• 1:06:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not that closely related to Gilmourn girls, but it's something that I read recently that I really loved, which was, oh, the shampoo effect.
• 1:06:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh, you just bought that yesterday.
• 1:06:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's so good.
• 1:06:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is it?
• 1:06:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I heard such good things about it.
• 1:06:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love it so much.
• 1:06:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: She does not need my publicity.
• 1:06:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: She's killing it, but Jenny Jackson is so annoying because she's such a good writer and that's not even her real job.
• 1:06:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: But no, I think it's a good rack for Gilmore Girls fans just because like I was so immersed in that world She build this world and then she builds these relationships, but it's really this town this little town in New England It's like a fictionalized hip switch, but you fall in love with this place and there's not that much going on And it's the people that populate it that make it the most intriguing place on earth
• 1:07:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: What made me think like, okay, this works for a Gilmore Girl's Reader is just like, I just love living in that world so much.
• 1:07:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it, this takes again, this takes do not feel super high.
• 1:07:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: No one is going to get murdered.
• 1:07:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's no violence.
• 1:07:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's just really nice to be like, here we are, even when bad decisions are made, everything's going to be okay.
• 1:07:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's come across.
• 1:07:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
• 1:07:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 1:07:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And very much like I can recommend it to anyone because I'm like, there are no trigger warnings.
• 1:07:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like everything's going to be okay in this.
• 1:07:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Which is great.
• 1:07:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's the kind of look that you want to read right now.
• 1:07:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like take it to the beach and it's also hilarious and compelling.
• 1:07:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's just like, it has everything you need without anything that's going to be like.
• 1:07:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: I just wanted like a summer read that felt good and it's really smart and she makes the sharpest observations about friendship, motherhood, marriage, she's yeah, it's incredible.
• 1:08:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can't believe you led into this so it was a bad recommendation because it actually feels quite perfect.
• 1:08:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean it, it's just like what is comparable to Gilmore girls in literary form is not that easy, like it's you know.
• 1:08:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it also, I feel like a lot of people they are immediately like, are their leaves on the cover?
• 1:08:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is he grumpy?
• 1:08:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is she, is she sunshine?
• 1:08:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, are they eating pancakes?
• 1:08:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I feel like it, it based on like the themes in the show.
• 1:08:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, you can kind of make far reaches that like of things that feel very similar.
• 1:08:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I always try to find someone who has a fun voice who feels like sharp clever observation.
• 1:08:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I feel like that really is.
• 1:08:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: These are the sharpest, most clever observations.
• 1:08:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're so good.
• 1:08:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Her writing is so good.
• 1:08:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Amazing!
• 1:08:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm actually going on vacation next week, so I bought it to take with me, so I'm so excited.
• 1:08:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like that's going to be, will you tell me what you think?
• 1:08:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I will.
• 1:08:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
• 1:08:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, but thank you so much.
• 1:08:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: This was absolutely incredible.
• 1:08:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: This was spectacular.
• 1:08:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you've been using that word a lot during this, but it really does feel like the only way to describe.
• 1:09:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Having read your book, reading your memoir, talking to you now, I'm just so excited for everyone to, who has not yet read your books to get to learn more about
• 1:09:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Ali.
• 1:09:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:09:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: This was quite a pleasure.
• 1:09:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: My book Leving Besties, thank you so much for listening to another episode of Gilmour to Read.
• 1:09:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you'd like to join the book club conversation head over to Patreon where you can join for free.
• 1:09:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: In August, we read The Unselected Journals of M.A.M.Lion, Volume 1, if you need a book that feels like London Starth Hollow, our September book will be announced shortly, and my next guess on the podcast will be a friend of the pod, B.K.Pourson, but until then, happy reading friends.