WEBVTT - Author Teddy Wayne Talks His New Book 'The Au Pair' 0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:07.000 Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:09.320 Teddy Wayne writes novels you can't. 0:00:09.200 --> 0:00:11.000 Put You already know I'm ount numbered. 0:00:11.640 --> 0:00:12.360 Yeah, sorry, Carol. 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:13.039 Uh. 0:00:13.360 --> 0:00:15.560 You know you can hang, I can hang, you can hang, 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:17.919 all right. Teddy Wayne writes novels you can't put down. 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:20.119 I know this because I've read all seven of them. 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:22.840 They include The Winner, which has been optioned by Sony 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:25.520 for a film starring Tom Holland, The Great Man, Theory, 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:29.880 The Love Song of Johnny Valentine, Capitoil, and others. Teddy's 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:32.600 novelist a screenwriter. He's also a freaking contributor to The 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:35.840 New Yorker McSweeney's other publications too. He was a finalist 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:38.879 for the Young Lions Fiction Award, pen Bingham Prize, and 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:40.640 Dayton Literary Peace Prize. 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:43.640 I feel like it's Outlander for guys. I'm just going 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:45.960 to put it out there. But anyway, his new book, 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:48.960 The au Pair, is a literary thriller that comes out tomorrow. 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:51.839 We're not going to spoil it. We're going to get 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:53.400 to that in just a moment. Teddy, of course, joining 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:56.400 us in our Bloomberg Interactive Brokers Studio. Welcome, Welcome, Thank you, 0:00:56.480 --> 0:00:58.400 for having me. Your book is being kind of passed 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:00.920 around our newsroom, to be quite honest, and different people 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:03.960 reading it. Anyone who reads your book and I listened 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:08.160 to a bunch of podcasts, it's often men who make 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:13.200 really questionable, in some cases, really bad decisions. What's up 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:13.560 with that? 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:17.759 I think I'm just entransd by the idea of someone 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:21.120 destroying their life, who has a pretty good one, a 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:25.800 fairly accomplished or content life, but is driven by the 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:29.920 American pursuit of more and more, more happiness, more money, 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:34.640 more sex, more status, and that ambition is their downfall. 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:36.640 Why are you so interested in that? 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:39.600 I live in New York City. It's around I'm at 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:43.160 Dereenburgh right now. That is so fair, the mecca of 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:44.639 ambition and status and money. 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:47.600 It does feel like we live in a society, certainly 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:50.440 in the New York metro. It's never enough, right. 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:51.760 It should be. 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:54.720 We all know that instinctively, we all have been taught 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:57.120 that over and over many times in our lives. But 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:00.000 when you're actually presented with the opportunity and the potential 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:01.680 to get more, it's very hard to turn it down. 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:04.480 There were somewhere on a podcast you talked about billionaire specifically, 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:07.280 and you were like, you know, that's not what people 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:09.560 really want to be or shouldn't be. It's not like 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:12.480 all of a sudden everybody is so happy or like 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:13.440 everything solved. 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:15.840 There is that stat I'm sure you guys know that 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:19.600 that study that people's happiness rises to a certain income 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:22.480 level and then maybe tails off. I think the original 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:24.560 number is seventy five thousand dollars a year. They upgraded 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:27.680 that to one point fifty or something because inflation. Perhaps 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:32.000 I strongly believe that past a certain point, it actually 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:34.639 goes down your happiness. That you might have more material comfort. 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:37.440 Of course, you might feel in some sense like you 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:40.680 one at life. But the people I know who are 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:44.720 in that kind of ultra rich, high net worth category 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:49.000 tend to have thinner relationships, tend to feel like, if 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:52.480 they don't recognize it themselves, that people like them for 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:55.680 their money and their power. And I think it's very 0:02:55.680 --> 0:02:59.320 difficult to have that kind of level of wealth, not 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:03.120 even income, and still have an authentically happy life. 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:05.359 Well, perhaps it's a good segue to talk about your 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:07.840 new book, The O Pair. It goes on sale tomorrow. 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:10.960 We're speaking with Teddy Wayne he's a novelist, author, screenwriter. 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:15.040 The Pair is a literary thriller. It's about a middle 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:19.040 aged novelist who lives in Brownstone, Brooklyn. He's married, the 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:21.919 marriage is not so great. A young Norwegian o Pair 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:24.320 enters the picture. 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:25.040 It's trouble. 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:27.040 I mean, I'm not going to give everything away, but 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:29.640 let's just say things get bit a lot messier, and 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:33.640 it sounds like they're going to get you. Talk about 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:36.520 writing about what you know and what you're surrounded by. 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:42.640 That profile of Steven, the main character, middle aged, plays pickleball. 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:47.400 I guess you play pickleball too. He has two kids, 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:51.640 lives in a certain part of Brooklyn that's very similar to. 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:54.200 You, adjacent to me. I live in Copple Hill in 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:55.040 that Brooklyn heights. 0:03:55.840 --> 0:03:58.160 I do two kids. Just got across Atlantic Avenue to 0:03:58.440 --> 0:03:58.920 get to it. 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:01.760 His career trajectory, in his financial situation in the household 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:03.960 is different from mine. He had a massive hit when 0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:07.040 he was nine years earlier before the novel starts. His 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:10.440 second novel was a bust. He's financially dependent on his wife, 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:14.320 who works in private equity. That's not my situation at all. 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:18.479 I've observed though both the plight of the novelist who 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:21.280 had a sort of a big bang of an opening 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:23.920 and then a whimper in their next phase. And I've 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:29.320 observed separately a number of men who are financially dependent 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:32.920 more or less on their wives, and they tend to 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:35.120 respond to it better than Steven does. There's a lot 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:39.160 of insecurity here, a lot of sense of emasculation. His 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:41.800 wife is not too thrilled with the arrangement either. So 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:44.880 I was interested in exploring this phenomenon that didn't really 0:04:44.880 --> 0:04:48.520 exist in America twenty plus years ago, certainly not thirty 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:51.760 plus years ago. It's not widespread now, but it's much 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:54.479 more common than you'd think, and there's nothing wrong with 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:58.440 it objectively, but I think the genders have stilled. I'm 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:00.400 trying to figure out how to how to adapt to it. 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:05.960 I found it notable that you wrote about how when 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:10.240 you started this process for writing this book, you started 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:12.560 it as a screenplayer, maybe a short story that could 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:14.559 turn into a screenplay that you could gift your agent, 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:17.480 who could then go and sell it to a streaming service. 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:23.120 The economics of writing a novel in today's environment is 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:24.920 that the way you have to approach something in order 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:27.960 to make the economics work, make it financially work, you 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:30.120 have to think about all these different streams, income streams. 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:33.560 If I didn't live in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, maybe I'd 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:35.400 have a little more leeway. Because I live where I live, 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:38.159 and I'm not a professor at a university. This is 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:40.880 the only way I make my living is writing. So 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:44.320 it's a bit of a rare breed now, I think again, 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:47.920 the type of me, the guy who earns a living 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:51.720 as a novelist, was in proliferation thirty plus years ago 0:05:51.720 --> 0:05:54.960 in American life, probably from like nineteen twenties up until 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:59.440 about twenty ten. The industry is contracted greatly. It's much 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:01.560 harder to make it living as a novelist, certainly as 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:05.120 a literary fiction novelist. Let's call it so. Yes, I 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:08.680 had this idea of thirty forty page short story. I'd 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:10.919 had a nice film deal with a winner. Let me 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:12.919 write this as a short story. We'll sell it to 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:17.479 Hollywood for ip highly cynical origin story. I'm aware of that. 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:21.240 Once I started writing it, though, I got very excited 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:24.159 by it, by the themes, by the characters, by the setting, 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:27.280 by the plot as well, and decided to turn into 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:30.240 a novel. So that was a quick, short lived idea. 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:34.200 But I used that initial conception of this is the 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:35.760 only way to make a living now for a guy 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:37.919 whos trying to support a family as one of the 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:40.960 major themes of the book that Stephen is now a 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:43.920 failing novelist who's financially dependent on his wife, who can't 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:46.800 make much money as a writer anymore. This undergirds all 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:48.440 his anxieties pretty much. 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:50.279 As a writer. Is that kind of rewarding to start 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:52.440 out with a shorter mission and just be like, Wow, 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:55.520 I'm just really loving this and I'm going to run 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:56.360 with it. 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:59.040 It is when it works out well. If it doesn't 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:01.800 work out well, quite maybe I should have kept at 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:02.479 that short level. 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:07.280 You know it. We're approaching this as broadcasters, as reporters, 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:09.160 and I couldn't help but notice in this book, in 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:10.640 some of your other books, I'm not going to again 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:15.720 not going to give anything away, but you think people 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:17.840 within a profession, I'll just go ahead and say it, 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:22.960 like an NYPD detective's bureau of a prosecutor in the 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:25.560 Bronx who you've leaned on in the past, and it's 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:27.600 almost like you reported out certain parts of this book 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:31.480 by making sure that it works in terms of like 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:34.240 if somebody in a profession, in a legal profession, were 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:36.360 to read it, they would say, Okay, wait a second, 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:39.239 that's how things would actually unfold. Can you talk about 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:42.520 not the creative process, but the actual reporting process in. 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:47.000 This Absolutely, I'm not a criminologist. I have no police background, 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:51.000 as you might be surprised to find out. So I 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:54.080 have these two friends, a detective and an assistant DA. 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:57.080 I feel like the one detective and one assistant DA 0:07:57.120 --> 0:07:59.440 who are both avid readers of literary fiction. So it's 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:01.720 great to have them in my back pocket. They helped 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:04.240 me a lot with The Winner as well. There's a 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:08.200 crime in that too, and I wouldn't know the first 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:13.560 thing about what police do, what lawyers do. You get 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:16.400 pick up some things from life from watching enough courtroom 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:18.760 thrillers and so on, but it helps to have people 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:21.360 were experts, and not only that, they've helped me come 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:24.600 up with plot turns for both these books. The ending 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:29.240 of The Winner was completely invented by my DA friend 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:31.320 who knew about this specific thing. I won't spoil it 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:34.880 for your viewers that not many peele knew about which 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:37.280 he gave to me as this is a great twist 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:39.480 for the ending. That is even a lot of cops 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:40.200 don't know about it. 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:41.440 That's pretty cool. 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:43.560 And I'm not sure if I've got getting this right. 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:45.800 But I thought I had heard on a podcast too 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:48.160 that the ending for this book you were planning to 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:50.120 go one way and then you went to it was 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:52.200 it a school event or something, and actually talked to 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:57.040 a father at a school event who kind of talked 0:08:57.080 --> 0:08:59.160 with you about some stuff and kind of helped shape you. 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:04.280 Was was a little bit quieter and subtler, and i'd 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:06.280 been working on it. I kind of knew something was wrong. 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:09.360 I went to my daughter's preschool graduation. 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:10.800 Party, which you love to do, right, which. 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:13.960 I'm always up for going to party. 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:16.719 Week We've all been there. 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:21.000 It was at the club as the after party we 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:23.400 were I sunging to another dad there. He works for 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:25.080 a company. I can't say what it is because it'll 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:28.000 spoil the last sentence of this book has a twist 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:30.280 in it, so I can't say what he works for. 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:33.199 But we talked for a while. I generally interested in 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:36.000 people's jobs and asked what they do. The Next day, 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:37.720 my wife and I were talking about the book, and 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:39.600 she said, I think you need something else here at 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:42.280 the ending, but I don't know what, but it's currently 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:45.400 not working. And I realized what this guy does for 0:09:45.440 --> 0:09:48.040 a living could play a big factor in that, and 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:49.719 I ended up rewriting it based on that. 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:50.880 Okay, so go ahead. CO. 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:53.440 Do you and your wife often talk? You're both writers? Like? 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:56.320 Do you you both work from home? Like? Do you 0:09:56.440 --> 0:09:58.360 often kind of bounce off of each other? 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:01.360 We do. Literally, we live in a small apartment and 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:03.959 we are constantly in each other's way. But her name 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:05.920 is Kate great Head. She's a wonderful writer to her 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:08.440 last book is called The Book of George. I'd say 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:11.000 we're probably each other's first and last readers. I think 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:14.960 first and last line of defense. Plenty of discussion while 0:10:14.960 --> 0:10:17.240 we're in the midst of things. Not the kind of 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:19.640 couple where we show each other every single page we 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:22.520 write that night. But good to have someone in your 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:25.040 own field who you can talk with about your own work, 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:28.439 but also about broader literature and movies and so on. 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:32.240 How much does a draft stay well, like, stay consistent. 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:34.400 I know it's you know, dependent on the draft, but this, 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:37.720 for example, the a Pair, which is coming out tomorrow. 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:42.120 Stay consistent between first and last draft. 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:46.440 The spine stay is consistent the first I've written this 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:49.000 and the last book very quickly the first draft. My 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:52.439 new method is write it as fast as possible, a 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:56.360 blitz like pace, to slightly match the pace of the 0:10:56.360 --> 0:10:59.200 reading experience. I want to write books that are page turners, 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:01.440 that are quick read that people tend to finish it 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:04.440 in one or two sittings. So I wrote them so quickly. 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:08.680 They're necessarily short too because of that, So the revision 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:11.960 process tends to flesh it out and deepen things. You've 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:16.439 get ideas like that ending twist. Plenty of other backstory 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:20.160 and other elements of character and psychology and narrative end 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:21.119 up coming into. 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:23.680 We're speaking with Teddy Wayne. He's a novelist, he's an author, 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:26.680 he is a screenwriter his new book, The au Pair. 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:31.040 I want to talk a little bit about some themes 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:32.720 that have come up in your work in the past. 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:34.960 One of them is technology. And again I'm not going 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:38.400 to give anything away, but technology features prominently in two 0:11:38.760 --> 0:11:41.880 in this book and also in another book, and I'm 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:43.920 just wondering the world that we live in today. You 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:47.800 talked earlier about how we're reading less so and buying 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:50.600 fewer books. Perhaps some of that time is being taken 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:53.240 up by us being addicted to our phones and information 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:56.040 coming at us from every different angle, where we're kind 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:59.120 of measuring everything too. I'm just wondering how you view technology. 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:01.400 I'd say all of it's being taken up by that. 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:05.040 I think that's the main difference between now in nineteen fifty, certainly, 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:07.040 but even two thousand and three. 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:07.880 Let's say. 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:11.240 I'm susceptible as anyone else. I spend a lot of 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:13.240 time on my phone. I'm not proud of it. I 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:15.560 don't like what it does to me. I can't resist 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:18.319 the lore of a glowing device. It has access to 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:21.600 everything in the world ever made much of it, bright 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:26.320 and shiny and video and visual. So I understand why 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:30.199 people are drawn to these things. I do my best 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:33.640 to have my children resist it, but there's only so 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:37.839 much you can do with it, and it's certainly leading 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:41.200 to the erosion of my industry as a writer. But 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:45.800 it's not doing great things for most people's characters and personalities. 0:12:45.840 --> 0:12:47.200 I'd say, what. 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:49.719 Do you hope when somebody reads your book like they 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:51.720 walk away? With because I do feel like there's messages 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:57.240 about society in there, and I think I mentioned earlier 0:12:57.280 --> 0:13:00.800 like the transactions that we see in our economy, the 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:05.040 power structure, whether you see it right off, there's just 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:08.680 always someone that can be above someone in positions. But 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:11.079 it's a part of a lot of your books. Well. 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:13.839 First, I'm trying to entertain people and to write something 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:16.079 that will make them put down the phone or their 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:19.600 laptop and just read a book. Secondly, I think art 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:23.760 can serve to essential purposes. It can cover the disturbed 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:27.680 or disturb the comfortable. Coverting the disturbed is a great thing, 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:30.360 it's not really what I do. I'm in the business 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:34.640 of disturbing the comfortable, specifically the probably upper middle class 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:38.320 professional class that might buy hardcover novel and have time 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:40.280 to read it on the beach, say, or on their vacation, 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:45.000 and an attempt to make them look around their environment 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:47.960 look at themselves with new eyes in a way that 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:51.920 I think fiction can often be anesthetizing or anodyne and 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:54.520 make us feel good about where we are, and I 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:56.760 am about ourselves, and there's nothing wrong with that again, but 0:13:56.880 --> 0:14:01.599 I'm more interested in making people question themselves. 0:14:01.120 --> 0:14:03.600 In other worlds and other works of art, often like 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:05.880 movies or something like the Anatomy of Fault Right that 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:10.000 inspired this. I mean, you are inspired by other works 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:10.800 that are out there. 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:13.560 You have to be. It would be strange to be 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:16.439 closed off by that. I've heard of writers who say 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:18.520 they don't want to read other novels of their fiction 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:20.800 while they're writing. I don't know how you would do that, 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:23.480 but I'm always looking for what might rub off on me. 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:25.160 I think it's important to have a bit of a 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:28.920 magpie sensibility to pick things from anywhere, whether it's another 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:32.480 novel it's the obvious place, but film, music, and then 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:35.400 of course real life and little moments from real life. 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:40.080 One of I think was Capitolia. First it was novel, 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:43.240 so it's a twenty ten novel. It tells a story 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:47.920 of this young immigrant from Qatar. It's actually very bloomberg like, 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:50.840 you know, he comes and you know it works on 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:54.920 Wall Street. He creates this algorithm to trade oil that 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:58.120 ends up being really successful. There's a character in there 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:00.400 who runs the fund that he works for, builds this 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:02.080 relationship with him, and he goes and visits him on 0:15:02.360 --> 0:15:05.600 his estate in Connecticut, and their helicopters involved in lots 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:09.480 and lots of money. Was there a specific individual like 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:12.000 the hedge fund manager you modeled that person off of. 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:14.720 Not hedge fund. I think each book of mine is 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:17.640 an attempt to be some kind of diagnostic assessment of 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:21.280 America at the time it was either written in end 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:22.520 or the time of Portrays. 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:25.160 Then this is post financial crisis, but it takes place 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:26.160 pre nine to eleven. 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:28.920 Takes place in nineteen ninety nine, so it but it's 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:30.680 meant to be, in its own way, a kind of 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:33.960 post nine to eleven novel about the nine to eleven world, 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:36.560 even though it's all set before that. So that book 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:39.760 was again as you pointed out, he develops an algorithm 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:43.160 that uses news articles. Part it's been a while since 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:45.760 I read it or thought about it uses news articles 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:50.680 and algorithmically sifts them to predict oil futures. It felt 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:53.680 like a kind of metaphor to me of let's say, 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:56.640 two thousand and three to two thousand and whatever US 0:15:56.640 --> 0:16:01.800 foreign policy of some kind of exploitative oil ill acquisition 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:06.160 and profiteering from Iraq. So that guy was not modeled 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:08.680 off a specific individual. As more thinking about the Dick 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:11.160 Cheney style of foreign imperialism. 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:13.640 All right, so I got to ask, I mean, did 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:18.280 you have an Norwegian or pair just kids Swedish? 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:22.120 We've never, You've not even had a nanny or we 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:25.680 rarely even get babysitters, to be honest, So it's all 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:26.440 all invented. 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:31.480 Writer's block. It seems like there's a theme often where 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:34.880 you have a writer or somebody who meets somebody, whether 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:40.200 it's apartment or this book, where somebody who isn't necessarily 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:43.080 a writer by training or something can write. So naturally, 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:45.400 do you have writer's block a lot? Or like? Why 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:46.840 is that a fun theme for you? 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:51.120 So I have a strange situation of once I get started, 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:53.600 I can't stop, and I'm very excited to write, and 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:56.760 there's no problems. It's between projects that I think I'll 0:16:56.800 --> 0:16:58.960 always I always fear I'll never come up with another 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:01.240 idea or another idea what're pursuing? 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:01.800 Get it? 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:05.040 And that is a probably chronic life flow anxiety that 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:09.840 I'll be afflicted with forever. Invariably, something pops up and 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:11.600 I get an idea and I run with it. But 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:14.879 there's often a several month gap between the end of 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:17.040 one project and they start a new one where I 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:20.760 do feel that sense of a block and that might 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:21.880 inform these characters. 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:23.720 Is that where you feel you are right now? Or 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:25.760 do you feel like you have with this new book 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:28.280 coming out that you worked you know has been quite 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:31.040 a while in the making. Are you ready to start 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:31.520 a new one. 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:33.800 I'm in the midst of working on one, so I'm 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:35.800 good for now. But when this is over, I still 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:37.240 feel like what's left? 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:41.119 All right? So the book is out tomorrow tomorrow A 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:43.320 teaser we don't want to give it away thirty forty 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:44.159 seconds for those. 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:47.600 Who might be listening of what it's about. Yeah, failing 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:51.080 middle aged Brooklyn novelist hires an o pair twenty four 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:53.639 year old original pair who upends his life and bad 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:54.280 things happen. 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:58.280 All right, summer read as we kick off the summer. 0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:01.040 Officially, and it already has been old to like a 0:18:02.000 --> 0:18:02.879 has it been sold to? 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:02.960 Like? 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:05.399 Who is it? Who bought it for a streaming rights 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:06.320 or season? 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:08.639 A big production company? They do? I think severans and 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:09.120 things like that. 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:12.119 So would it be a series versus a one off film? Okay? 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:14.840 All right, well, congratulations, thank you, thanks all right for 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:15.280 joining us. 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:18.560 I'm just kidding. Good luck with it. Thank you so much. 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:20.800 This was really fun. We really enjoyed it. Teddy Wayne 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:24.639 of course joining us. The book is the All pair. Yeah, 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:26.280 and there's lots of books and you've read them all. 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:29.000 I've read all seven and I will read the eighth one.