Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / Coming of Age in the New Wave Rock Mid '80s: A Woman's Journey [Episode 233]
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: We're totally booked rock and Roll.
- 0:04Speaker 2: I mean, I'll leave you. You're reading.
- 0:05Speaker 1: Little Hands says it's time.
- 0:06Speaker 2: To rock and roll, roll Out, I totally booked.
- 0:15Speaker 1: Welcome back to book don Rock, the podcast for those
- 0:18Speaker 1: about to read and rock online of Booked on Rock
- 0:21Speaker 1: dot Com. Every episode there in both audio and video.
- 0:24Speaker 1: Exclusive video segments from episodes, a blog the latest rockbook releases,
- 0:29Speaker 1: and you can check out the all new Booked on
- 0:31Speaker 1: Rock store hat t shirts, tote bags, sweaters, hoodies and
- 0:35Speaker 1: more at Booked on rock dot Com. Author Suzanne Mattaboni
- 0:39Speaker 1: is this episode's guest. She recently released the second edition
- 0:42Speaker 1: of her novel Once in a Lifetime, a coming of
- 0:45Speaker 1: age story set in the mid nineteen eighties against the
- 0:47Speaker 1: backdrop of vibrant music and art. The main character an
- 0:51Speaker 1: ambitious New Wave influenced art student from Long Island who's
- 0:55Speaker 1: dying to kickstarter career and her love life for that matter.
- 0:58Speaker 1: She's saving to get over to London, where the excitement
- 1:01Speaker 1: of the post punk era is coming to a head.
- 1:04Speaker 1: To save for the trip, artsy Jessica and her avant
- 1:07Speaker 1: garde roommates take jobs at a progressive restaurant town on
- 1:10Speaker 1: the Delaware River, where they deal with waitressing, chaos, mystics,
- 1:14Speaker 1: punk clubs, drag queens, mosh pits, and other assorted tribulations
- 1:18Speaker 1: in an effort for jess to find out what real
- 1:20Speaker 1: life beyond the college classroom is like. Then she meets
- 1:24Speaker 1: a daredevil New wave guitarist who spins her head like
- 1:26Speaker 1: a record, potentially distracting her from her goals. In addition
- 1:30Speaker 1: to an awesome backing soundtrack, the book leverages feminist themes
- 1:34Speaker 1: since the women of the eighties were the first generation
- 1:37Speaker 1: to be told they could have it all. Loved education, friendships,
- 1:41Speaker 1: meaning sex, careers, happiness, you name it. Except maybe the
- 1:46Speaker 1: world wasn't completely ready for those women to have it all,
- 1:49Speaker 1: which was a tough wall to push down, and this
- 1:51Speaker 1: still resonates today. Suzanne is on the show to talk
- 1:55Speaker 1: about the book, what inspired the storyline, the characters in
- 1:58Speaker 1: the book, her experiences, a woman of the eighties, and more. Suzanne,
- 2:03Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcast.
- 2:05Speaker 2: Thank you. It's great to be here.
- 2:07Speaker 1: So here we have a coming of age story set
- 2:09Speaker 1: in the mid nineteen eighties. The main character is Jessica,
- 2:13Speaker 1: an ambitious New Wave influenced art student from Long Island,
- 2:16Speaker 1: she's dying to kickstarter career. She's saving to get overseas
- 2:20Speaker 1: to London. To save for the trip, her in her
- 2:23Speaker 1: roommates take jobs in a progressive restaurant town on the
- 2:26Speaker 1: Delaware River where they deal with a lot of different
- 2:28Speaker 1: things waitress and chaos, mystics, punk clubs, drag queens, mosh pits,
- 2:32Speaker 1: and other assorted tribulations in an effort for her to
- 2:35Speaker 1: find out what real life beyond the college classroom is like.
- 2:39Speaker 1: So tell us about this character, Jessica.
- 2:42Speaker 2: She kind of sees a world out there happening as
- 2:46Speaker 2: far as this exciting new scene that's going on. She
- 2:49Speaker 2: wants to be a part of it. It's influencing design
- 2:53Speaker 2: and art and what everyone's listening to, what they're wearing.
- 2:56Speaker 2: It has an effect on so many things around her,
- 3:00Speaker 2: and she kind of feels like it's all going on
- 3:02Speaker 2: without her, and she wants have to come to a
- 3:04Speaker 2: stop so she can kickstart her career, you know, become
- 3:09Speaker 2: a multimedia artist and find fame and fortune and be
- 3:13Speaker 2: part of this scene that she feels kind of just
- 3:15Speaker 2: beyond her reach. So she wants to go overseas to
- 3:20Speaker 2: London where all the new wave you know, the real
- 3:22Speaker 2: cool post punk stuff is going on. So she wants
- 3:25Speaker 2: to go to an art program there that's a little
- 3:28Speaker 2: too expensive for her, so in order to do that,
- 3:31Speaker 2: her friend set her up with a waitressing job and
- 3:34Speaker 2: a cool kind of progressive town on the Delaware River.
- 3:37Speaker 2: And in the midst of trying to scrape up that
- 3:40Speaker 2: money through you know, waitressing jobs, they meet a lot
- 3:44Speaker 2: of you know, interesting people and go do some you know,
- 3:48Speaker 2: punk club trolling, and she gets into kind of the
- 3:51Speaker 2: middle of a new relationship that she has to kind
- 3:53Speaker 2: of balance against a relationship that she had put on
- 3:57Speaker 2: the back burner for a while so that she could
- 3:59Speaker 2: pursue some of these new you know, career goals and such.
- 4:03Speaker 1: So in the original came out in twenty twenty two.
- 4:07Speaker 1: Is there anything different in this book than.
- 4:08Speaker 2: The first one, Well, there is the forward by Annie Zeleski,
- 4:13Speaker 2: who is a terrific journalist. I'm so excited that she
- 4:16Speaker 2: got involved in this product, this whole process. So she
- 4:21Speaker 2: has worked with Rolling Stone and she's written essays for
- 4:25Speaker 2: intros at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and
- 4:30Speaker 2: she was able to do a forward and you know,
- 4:33Speaker 2: said some interesting things about both the book and the
- 4:36Speaker 2: time period and the music.
- 4:37Speaker 1: Scene beautifully written, beautifully written.
- 4:40Speaker 2: Yeah, she's terrific. Like I said, really happy to get
- 4:43Speaker 2: her involved. In addition, I have a collection of short
- 4:46Speaker 2: stories that's coming out. In one of those stories is
- 4:48Speaker 2: included as a bonus, and in addition to that, there's
- 4:53Speaker 2: an author Q and a.
- 4:55Speaker 1: So Okay, what inspired what inspired you to write the book? Initially?
- 5:00Speaker 2: Well, the book sort of started with some experiences that
- 5:06Speaker 2: I wanted to relay that had happened to me when
- 5:10Speaker 2: I was a young person. I wanted to kind of
- 5:13Speaker 2: bottle this exciting timeframe where this scene was kind of
- 5:18Speaker 2: busting out and young people were really taking ownership of
- 5:22Speaker 2: it because we knew that something really different was happening
- 5:25Speaker 2: and that we were driving it, and that was powerful.
- 5:30Speaker 2: That was very empowering at the time. But as sometimes
- 5:34Speaker 2: happens with fiction, you start with certain situations and characters
- 5:40Speaker 2: and people and characteristics that you know and then they
- 5:44Speaker 2: run off and do their own thing in the book
- 5:47Speaker 2: and create arcs and become fictional and do things that
- 5:51Speaker 2: you never expected them to do. And that's that's a
- 5:55Speaker 2: good scenario. When you get them, the characters to kind
- 5:58Speaker 2: of build their own life.
- 6:00Speaker 1: So yeah, And speaking of that, Annie Zeleski wrote the
- 6:04Speaker 1: forward as you say, and she highlights a quote from
- 6:06Speaker 1: the book that's really stood out to her, and it
- 6:08Speaker 1: stood out to me as well. It's quote, I want
- 6:10Speaker 1: it all. Isn't that what they told us we could
- 6:13Speaker 1: have were the women of the eighties. We can have
- 6:15Speaker 1: it all. No one mentioned what would happen if we
- 6:18Speaker 1: got it Can you expand on that quote how it
- 6:20Speaker 1: relates to the main character in the book and her
- 6:24Speaker 1: journey through this story.
- 6:26Speaker 2: Sure? Absolutely. This is actually a big thing in the
- 6:28Speaker 2: book because young women of this time frame realized that,
- 6:33Speaker 2: you know, their mothers really maybe didn't have the option
- 6:36Speaker 2: to go to college. It was frowned upon, or you know,
- 6:38Speaker 2: they were had less choices. But here we are now,
- 6:43Speaker 2: and we can go to college, we can have education,
- 6:47Speaker 2: we can have careers, we can have friendships, we can
- 6:49Speaker 2: have relationships and sex and adventures and do whatever we want.
- 6:53Speaker 2: We can have it all. That was kind of a
- 6:55Speaker 2: big thing in the eighties. They said, well, you can
- 6:57Speaker 2: have it all, But I don't know if anybody can
- 7:00Speaker 2: really have it all. So this is a moment in
- 7:04Speaker 2: a young woman's life where she had to realize what
- 7:06Speaker 2: kind of choices and sacrifices she would have to make
- 7:11Speaker 2: in order to get all the things that she wants,
- 7:13Speaker 2: and maybe even with all that, butt up against things
- 7:17Speaker 2: that were obstacles and realize that maybe no one can
- 7:21Speaker 2: have it all at least not all at once. You
- 7:23Speaker 2: have to maybe earn a little bit of this now,
- 7:26Speaker 2: get a little bit of something else later, and just
- 7:28Speaker 2: continue with your life and realize the reality of your circumstances,
- 7:33Speaker 2: which you know women are still budding up against today.
- 7:36Speaker 1: Yeah, right, right. And he also points out how the
- 7:39Speaker 1: music of the eighties provided emotional, solid and unstoppable dance grooves,
- 7:43Speaker 1: but also served as a blueprint on how to march
- 7:45Speaker 1: to the beat of a different trummer and stay focused
- 7:48Speaker 1: on a future you define on your own terms. At
- 7:51Speaker 1: the end of the book, you think a lot of
- 7:53Speaker 1: specific musicians and artists most if not all I love,
- 7:57Speaker 1: or it was the music and the artists of the
- 7:59Speaker 1: eighties to you in terms of the book storyline. Was
- 8:04Speaker 1: there specific reasons behind what you chose for song titles?
- 8:07Speaker 2: Oh? Absolutely, absolutely well. A lot of the framing of
- 8:13Speaker 2: the book with those song titles was due to the
- 8:17Speaker 2: fact that these young women were so devoted to the scene.
- 8:21Speaker 2: They really they communicated in song lyrics, They talked to
- 8:24Speaker 2: each other in song lyrics. They kind of felt like
- 8:27Speaker 2: this was their own language that really no one else
- 8:29Speaker 2: was privy to but them u And that was a
- 8:34Speaker 2: challenge for me to weave into the book without You
- 8:38Speaker 2: really can't quote song lyrics or you know, any of
- 8:41Speaker 2: anybody else's writing. You can quote titles, That's why the
- 8:44Speaker 2: titles are used in that way. But what you find
- 8:48Speaker 2: as a writer then is that you can't. You know,
- 8:51Speaker 2: it would be so much easier to cheat and use
- 8:53Speaker 2: somebody else's brilliant lyrics, but if you can, you have
- 8:56Speaker 2: to evoke that same feeling yourself with your own language.
- 8:59Speaker 2: So there are a lot of little easter eggs in
- 9:02Speaker 2: there that so it sort of point to lyrics or
- 9:09Speaker 2: you know, use them in a kind of an offhand
- 9:11Speaker 2: and incorrect way. But if you know that song, you
- 9:14Speaker 2: know what they're talking about. But that's kind of tipping
- 9:17Speaker 2: a hat to the fact that this defined, you know,
- 9:21Speaker 2: the music defined how these girls lived and who who
- 9:24Speaker 2: they hung around with, and what clubs they went to
- 9:26Speaker 2: and what shoes they wore, you know, what boots they
- 9:29Speaker 2: wore and what clothes you know they dressed up in,
- 9:33Speaker 2: And it just had so much influence over what everybody did.
- 9:37Speaker 2: It's how you identified each other.
- 9:40Speaker 1: Book on Rock Podcast. We'll be back after this.
- 9:42Speaker 2: I think I need a break, a little break, okay.
- 9:48Speaker 1: Each chapter contains stories that provide the monthly year location,
- 9:51Speaker 1: while also including the title of a song that fits
- 9:54Speaker 1: in with what you're about to read. And chapter three
- 9:56Speaker 1: is almost June nineteen eighty four. The Sandler Apartments. Girls
- 10:00Speaker 1: just want to have fun. This is when she's moving
- 10:01Speaker 1: into the departments. Cardboard boxes everywhere, and but the objective
- 10:06Speaker 1: is really, let's check out the new club down the street,
- 10:09Speaker 1: you know, New Hopes nightlife. What's it all about? So
- 10:12Speaker 1: the eighties decade of excess having fun. Yeah, But Jess
- 10:15Speaker 1: and her friends are aware of the dangers out there.
- 10:17Speaker 1: They're they're cautious about the guys they meet, They're protective
- 10:20Speaker 1: of each other. There's a strength to these girls. They're smart.
- 10:24Speaker 1: So it reminded me of girls just want to have fun.
- 10:27Speaker 1: Cyndi Lauper, how she wanted to have fun. But she
- 10:30Speaker 1: was tough. You would mess with her, you know, like
- 10:32Speaker 1: WWF she stood up to Captain Dewelbano and Roddy Piper.
- 10:35Speaker 1: So I wondered if there was some kind of correlation there,
- 10:38Speaker 1: if that was a specific choice.
- 10:40Speaker 2: Well, it was in a lot of on a lot
- 10:44Speaker 2: of a lot of levels. These girls are strong. I'm
- 10:47Speaker 2: glad that that comes through. I had, you know, we
- 10:50Speaker 2: had had a discussion where in trying to publish the book,
- 10:54Speaker 2: I had gotten feedback almost that the girls were too
- 10:57Speaker 2: strong from the get go, that there wasn't enough of
- 10:59Speaker 2: an all, which upset me because I you know, my
- 11:03Speaker 2: my question was, well, do you want strong women in
- 11:05Speaker 2: your books or you want wimpy girls who then maybe
- 11:07Speaker 2: find some strength in the end, because I didn't like
- 11:09Speaker 2: that idea, And.
- 11:11Speaker 1: Yeah, you told me that too before we recording. I mean,
- 11:14Speaker 1: that's a challenge that I think every author has to
- 11:16Speaker 1: face when the publishers make decisions that they're just they're
- 11:19Speaker 1: not falling in line with what your vision is for the.
- 11:21Speaker 2: Story, right right, And I thought that was a kind
- 11:23Speaker 2: of sad way to present, you know, literature to people.
- 11:27Speaker 2: So you know, I stuck with my guns. But in fact,
- 11:30Speaker 2: there's these girls are described as intimidating even in different
- 11:35Speaker 2: in different parts of the book. They do have a
- 11:38Speaker 2: certain strength, and they are very supportive and protective of
- 11:43Speaker 2: each other. They are not perfect. They butt heads. They
- 11:47Speaker 2: you know, they are loyalty to each other as questions
- 11:49Speaker 2: at moments, but they are called upon to rescue each
- 11:53Speaker 2: other at points and they do that. And as far
- 11:56Speaker 2: as girls just want to have fun, it's also the
- 11:59Speaker 2: fact that we had a lot of fun as young
- 12:03Speaker 2: people supporting each other and even just you know, it
- 12:07Speaker 2: was just as much fun to go through her closets
- 12:09Speaker 2: and decide what we wanted to wear and you know,
- 12:11Speaker 2: and get ready for the party as it was to
- 12:13Speaker 2: actually go to the party. You know, sometimes we had
- 12:16Speaker 2: just as much fun being together and dancing around the room,
- 12:19Speaker 2: you know, trying on each other's clothes and you know, searching.
- 12:23Speaker 1: All those eighties.
- 12:26Speaker 2: Love it, and yeah, rearranging you know, each other's outfits
- 12:29Speaker 2: and such.
- 12:30Speaker 1: So you know it, Well, I just saw a clip
- 12:33Speaker 1: of Cindy Lauper just recently at one of her concerts,
- 12:36Speaker 1: singing good girls just want to have fun. And she
- 12:38Speaker 1: still dresses outrageously, he said, the polka dot dress and
- 12:44Speaker 1: author Susanne Matteboni is this episode's guest. She was the
- 12:47Speaker 1: second edition of her novel Once in a Lifetime. So
- 12:50Speaker 1: just as two men in her life mentioned this earlier.
- 12:52Speaker 1: Her boyfriend from high school, Drew. He's an astrophysics major
- 12:57Speaker 1: and led Zeppelin fan. Who is more Indy Coffin then
- 13:00Speaker 1: Andy Taylor more, this is great. More davidly Roth than
- 13:04Speaker 1: David Bowie. That's great. Then there is is it Wit?
- 13:10Speaker 1: Yeah that's his name, right, Wit, the guitarist in a
- 13:12Speaker 1: new wave band, And there are some serious fireworks when
- 13:15Speaker 1: Jess meets with talk about their relationship and that storyline
- 13:19Speaker 1: in the book.
- 13:20Speaker 2: Uh well, she is quite impressed with the fact that
- 13:26Speaker 2: he is so into the music scene that his band
- 13:29Speaker 2: is actually going somewhere because they had opened up for,
- 13:33Speaker 2: you know, a larger band. That she actually went to
- 13:35Speaker 2: see a band called Killing Joke, which is kind of
- 13:38Speaker 2: what we called hardcore at the time.
- 13:40Speaker 1: Uh so she's a real band. Yeah, hell yeah, yeah,
- 13:44Speaker 1: because Healing Killing Joke. I think Nirvana has come as
- 13:46Speaker 1: you are come. That riff comes from a Killing Joke song,
- 13:50Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken.
- 13:51Speaker 2: Really yeah, they were kind of harsh but fun, but
- 13:56Speaker 2: some danceable stuff. Uh and in in case, so his
- 13:59Speaker 2: fictition band, let's say opens up for them at a
- 14:02Speaker 2: club in Philly, and she meets him before realizing that
- 14:05Speaker 2: and is, you know, really kind of shocked out of
- 14:07Speaker 2: her little boots. So so that's fun, And like I said,
- 14:12Speaker 2: she kind of she relates to him on a very
- 14:16Speaker 2: creative level and relates to the fact that he's been
- 14:21Speaker 2: able to enter this world that she's been envious of.
- 14:25Speaker 2: She's he's a little older than her and obviously, you know,
- 14:27Speaker 2: a little further along in his own creative career. So
- 14:32Speaker 2: she she envies that she wants to be near that.
- 14:36Speaker 2: She has a lot of fun with him. He's he
- 14:39Speaker 2: just kind of never stops, you know, moving and talking
- 14:42Speaker 2: and expounding on, you know, what makes him creative and
- 14:46Speaker 2: where his inspiration comes from. So they commiserate a lot
- 14:53Speaker 2: on that. But I think she also finds he's a
- 14:58Speaker 2: little reckless. He's the little you know, maybe pols he
- 15:02Speaker 2: places where she's not quite as comfortable as she usually is.
- 15:07Speaker 2: So one thing about her as an artist, she's a
- 15:10Speaker 2: glass mosaic, glass artist. So really she takes things, smashes
- 15:14Speaker 2: them up into pieces, and puts them back together again
- 15:16Speaker 2: in the way that she wants them to be. And
- 15:18Speaker 2: she acknowledges that this is what she does with things.
- 15:21Speaker 2: She takes things as they exist and kind of puts
- 15:24Speaker 2: them through the strainer of her brain and they come
- 15:26Speaker 2: out different. And as she goes through this relationship with Wit,
- 15:31Speaker 2: she starts to realize that she's sort of doing the
- 15:34Speaker 2: same thing with guys, where she has these two relationships
- 15:39Speaker 2: and she's comparing them and she wishes that she could
- 15:42Speaker 2: pare down each of them and sort of meld them
- 15:44Speaker 2: together and make the perfect relationship. And that's really not fair.
- 15:49Speaker 2: And I think in the end, you know, the characters
- 15:53Speaker 2: in the book and the book are flawed. They are
- 15:54Speaker 2: not perfect people, and that's a little more realistic I
- 15:57Speaker 2: think then some of the things that are out there
- 15:59Speaker 2: on paper right now. But I think she has to
- 16:01Speaker 2: face up to her own flaws too, and the things
- 16:03Speaker 2: that well, just she's finding will disappoint her in life,
- 16:06Speaker 2: and it's.
- 16:07Speaker 1: Not finding out about herself. She's still young, Yeah, she's
- 16:11Speaker 1: what nineteen years old, maybe nineteen.
- 16:13Speaker 2: Twenty, Yeah, she's twenty. She just turns she turns twenty
- 16:16Speaker 2: actually in at the beginning of the book. So so
- 16:20Speaker 2: you know, she finds that some of the things that
- 16:21Speaker 2: she's disappointed with are not necessarily people. It's that she's
- 16:26Speaker 2: just disappointed in the fact that she can't have that
- 16:29Speaker 2: level of control and influence over the world. She has
- 16:32Speaker 2: to accept some things and step back.
- 16:36Speaker 1: How did Jess's friends feel about wit.
- 16:40Speaker 2: I think they were all pretty taken by him also,
- 16:42Speaker 2: you know, because they all wanted to be part of
- 16:45Speaker 2: that world. And I think by the end, as they
- 16:51Speaker 2: sort her, they started to acknowledge that recklessness. Also, things
- 16:56Speaker 2: got a little scary, you know. I don't want to
- 16:57Speaker 2: go too into too much detail because if anybody does
- 17:00Speaker 2: want to read it, spoil anything. But they do end
- 17:04Speaker 2: up toward the end of the book going to a
- 17:08Speaker 2: pretender's concert, which, you know, asking someone to a pretender's
- 17:11Speaker 2: concert might as well be like a you know, a
- 17:13Speaker 2: new Way marriage proposal. So this is a real serious thing,
- 17:18Speaker 2: but it does turn into somewhat of a dangerous event
- 17:22Speaker 2: and things kind of spiral.
- 17:24Speaker 1: So yeah, and we mentioned this earlier. For Jess and
- 17:29Speaker 1: and women of that time in the eighties, they may
- 17:34Speaker 1: not have older people that they could could turn to
- 17:36Speaker 1: for life advice. How does she process all of this
- 17:39Speaker 1: and try to navigate through these challenges? She can't call
- 17:42Speaker 1: mom and say, what did you do in your kid?
- 17:44Speaker 1: Because they grew up during a different time, right.
- 17:47Speaker 2: It's true, And this particular character Jessica does not have
- 17:51Speaker 2: She lives with her grandparents, so she lost her mother
- 17:53Speaker 2: and she's out of touch with her father, so she
- 17:56Speaker 2: didn't have that even if she really wanted it. And
- 18:00Speaker 2: back at the time period, yeah, we weren't so connected
- 18:06Speaker 2: to and I don't mean, you know, emotionally. I mean
- 18:08Speaker 2: I was very close to my parents, but I did
- 18:10Speaker 2: not talk to them. I don't even get texts on
- 18:12Speaker 2: a regular basis. You know, we didn't have that level
- 18:15Speaker 2: of communication. The infrastructure for that just didn't exist. So
- 18:20Speaker 2: our friends sort of were our family. And I think
- 18:24Speaker 2: that's what you're seeing in this book. It's not just
- 18:26Speaker 2: about the guys. It's about female friendships and them supporting
- 18:30Speaker 2: each other no matter what. And they're flawed also, and
- 18:33Speaker 2: they butt heads and they you know, get into trouble
- 18:38Speaker 2: and you know, question each other's loyalty at moments, but
- 18:42Speaker 2: in the end, they come to each other's rescue big time.
- 18:44Speaker 2: So you know, that's what that's part of what the book.
- 18:47Speaker 2: Book is about. And she has to decide where her
- 18:49Speaker 2: loyalties are they're also and she kind of finds.
- 18:51Speaker 1: Out Yeah, and me meanwhile, we suggest she's well, she's
- 18:55Speaker 1: in control for the most part of the relationship with Wit.
- 18:58Speaker 1: Early on, he's starting to work wonder how she feels
- 19:01Speaker 1: and where he fits in her life. He gets frustrated
- 19:03Speaker 1: and he says, am I still just a piece of
- 19:05Speaker 1: your jigsaw puzzle. With that control comes difficulty for her, however,
- 19:09Speaker 1: because I don't get the feeling she's enjoying this. It's
- 19:12Speaker 1: not like she's trying to mess with his head. She's
- 19:14Speaker 1: legitimately torn emotionally, and it's not just her career that
- 19:19Speaker 1: what is up against. She still has feelings for Drew.
- 19:22Speaker 1: So here lies the answer to the question I suppose
- 19:25Speaker 1: is is this what happens when a woman of the
- 19:27Speaker 1: eighties has it all right?
- 19:28Speaker 2: I mean, this is yeah, exactly exactly, Well, a young
- 19:32Speaker 2: woman of the eighties who is trying to figure out
- 19:37Speaker 2: so many of the elements in her life. And that's
- 19:40Speaker 2: what she was referring to as a jigsaw puzzle, like I,
- 19:43Speaker 2: you know, I have a few pieces. Like she kind
- 19:45Speaker 2: of looks at herself like this unfinished mosaic where there
- 19:49Speaker 2: are things that are going to be filled in, and
- 19:51Speaker 2: she doesn't know what the final picture is going to
- 19:53Speaker 2: look like, and she maybe that makes a few analogies
- 19:57Speaker 2: about that throughout the book, and it's a very and
- 20:01Speaker 2: even even the lyrics of Once in a Lifetime, I
- 20:05Speaker 2: feel like that you are always wondering where am I
- 20:10Speaker 2: going to end up? How did I get here? How
- 20:13Speaker 2: am I going to get where I need to be going?
- 20:16Speaker 2: And in wondering that throughout the whole book, I think
- 20:21Speaker 2: it throws the people around her off, especially Wit, and
- 20:25Speaker 2: it maybe drew also, But to a certain extent, one
- 20:30Speaker 2: or the other of them are able to resolve that
- 20:33Speaker 2: better than the other.
- 20:35Speaker 1: Wit is not a saint either, right.
- 20:37Speaker 2: Now, he has his own but not no one's maliciously.
- 20:43Speaker 2: No one maliciously missteps in the book, right exactly. But
- 20:50Speaker 2: they do misstep, confuse each other, hurt each other, and
- 20:54Speaker 2: you know, try as best as they can to make
- 20:56Speaker 2: up for it.
- 20:57Speaker 1: But this I think also applies today for everybody male, female.
- 21:02Speaker 1: Is it possible to have it all at the same time?
- 21:06Speaker 1: Or is there always a price to pay? I mean,
- 21:07Speaker 1: there's always a sacrifice to make. You can't There's only
- 21:09Speaker 1: so much time in the day, you have to make
- 21:12Speaker 1: some sacrifices, and you find a lot of musicians, actors
- 21:18Speaker 1: who are on the road a lot. There is a
- 21:20Speaker 1: price that they pay for it, and then later in
- 21:23Speaker 1: life they realize, I don't know, maybe should I have
- 21:25Speaker 1: Should I have done that? Shit? But that's what life
- 21:29Speaker 1: is all about, making choices, right.
- 21:31Speaker 2: It's true. It's true. No matter how, no matter what
- 21:33Speaker 2: choice you make, you look back and wonder what would
- 21:35Speaker 2: have happened if you did the other thing?
- 21:37Speaker 1: So well, that's what I wonder is would the character
- 21:41Speaker 1: just do anything different if you were to ask her
- 21:44Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four about her life back then.
- 21:47Speaker 2: Hmmm, I don't know. She might idealistically think that that. Well,
- 21:54Speaker 2: the way I look at it is that if you
- 21:56Speaker 2: could go back and do it again, you would do
- 21:58Speaker 2: it differently. Don't get it again. You only get the
- 22:02Speaker 2: one time. So if you have to prioritize, you pick
- 22:05Speaker 2: the one that you really had to, you know, make
- 22:07Speaker 2: number one in your life. So you know, if it
- 22:11Speaker 2: were a matter, if I could magically just continue to
- 22:13Speaker 2: live my life over again, would I have made different choices? Well? Yeah,
- 22:17Speaker 2: because it would be fun to be able to discover
- 22:18Speaker 2: those other things. Yeah, but I wouldn't put those other
- 22:22Speaker 2: things over the choices that I made, you know, I
- 22:25Speaker 2: made them for a reason, and I think I think
- 22:26Speaker 2: a lot of people find that out, and I think
- 22:28Speaker 2: you see a lot of unfiction also, you know, people
- 22:30Speaker 2: go back, you know, when they get this magical second chance,
- 22:33Speaker 2: and things just sort of revert to the choices that
- 22:36Speaker 2: they made and they reconfirm that maybe they weren't so
- 22:39Speaker 2: stupid after all.
- 22:41Speaker 1: Once in a lifetime it's out now. You can find
- 22:44Speaker 1: out wherever books are sold and where can people find
- 22:46Speaker 1: you online? Susan I am.
- 22:48Speaker 2: At Suzanne Maatdeboni dot com, so if you note the
- 22:53Speaker 2: spelling of the name, you can find it. There's also
- 22:58Speaker 2: be Terrific. It was also a once in a Lifetime
- 23:02Speaker 2: novel dot com site if you want to find out
- 23:05Speaker 2: about the book itself. And yeah, it's out there on Amazon,
- 23:09Speaker 2: it's on Kindle Unlimited at the moment, it's on Barnes
- 23:13Speaker 2: and Noble. It's at various places.
- 23:15Speaker 1: So that's great. Suzanne, thank you. This was great.
- 23:18Speaker 2: Great to be here. Yeah, great to get to discuss
- 23:20Speaker 2: some of the ways that new wave music kind of
- 23:23Speaker 2: affected people all the time, because that was something I
- 23:25Speaker 2: really wanted to share with people who hadn't experienced it.
- 23:38Speaker 1: That's it, it's in the books.