Speaker 1: Today's podcast is with my friend and very close neighbor,
Speaker 1: And Leary. But before we start, I just want to
Speaker 1: tell you what we were doing. I picked her up
Speaker 1: at the gate, which is around the corner from her house.
Speaker 1: There's another gate in between her house and my house,
Speaker 1: but I don't unlock that gate even for Anne, and
Speaker 1: so I made her go all the way around to
Speaker 1: the next gate, and then we drove in my Polaris
Speaker 1: down to the Maple Avenue house where we record this podcast.
Speaker 1: But on the way we stopped and we weeded, and
Speaker 1: I did a little description of the maple woodland and
Speaker 1: I think I hopefully she learned a little bit about
Speaker 1: Japanese maple trees. But then she said she loves tweed.
Speaker 1: So Ann Leary's going to come back and weed some
Speaker 1: more this afternoon after our podcast. But we're here to
Speaker 1: talk about Anne's writing, about Anne's life and about her
Speaker 1: perspective online and living. The new book that we are
Speaker 1: also going to focus on is entitled I've Tried Being Nice.
Speaker 1: There's some very funny things in this book, and I
Speaker 1: think that we should start with Anne Leary reading one
Speaker 1: little little paragraph that she wrote about her neighbor Martha Stewart. Okay,
Speaker 1: can you read that? Sure?
Speaker 2: And thank you so much, Martha.
Speaker 3: I just want to say that just riding on Martha's
Speaker 3: Polaris through her property is actually a wonderful way to
Speaker 3: spend a morning. I know you've probably already been to pilates,
Speaker 3: ridden two horses.
Speaker 1: No, I didn't ride, but I did go to pilates.
Speaker 1: I have moved a lot of plants. I've been cleaning
Speaker 1: out the vegetable greenhouse, and I'm like, you, busy, busy,
Speaker 1: busy all the time.
Speaker 2: You're more busy than I am.
Speaker 3: I have a feeling you've also maybe started a new
Speaker 3: business and maybe negotiated a truth in the Middle East
Speaker 3: this morning.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't that be good if I could?
Speaker 2: I think you could, Martha.
Speaker 1: Would I would like to try. I would like to
Speaker 1: ring bring some next first. Okay, so read that little,
Speaker 1: Read that little.
Speaker 3: This book is called I Tried Being Nice. It's an
Speaker 3: essay collection. I was going to call it the Unauthorized
Speaker 3: Biography of Martha Stewart because I wanted it to be
Speaker 3: a bestseller, but it's It actually mentions Martha once. But
Speaker 3: the title essay is about a problem I had with
Speaker 3: Martha and I are neighbors, but was a different neighbor,
Speaker 3: and I finally reached a breaking point and actually had
Speaker 3: to say the words, look, I've tried being nice. This
Speaker 3: is about reaching a certain age. We went gray early
Speaker 3: in my family. My daughter thinks she found her first
Speaker 3: gray hair at age twelve.
Speaker 2: I found on my twenties.
Speaker 3: But anyway, during COVID, I decided I would grow up
Speaker 3: my gray because I saw all these silver foxes, you know,
Speaker 3: that were supermodels that had gray hair, and I thought
Speaker 3: I would look like them. So I grew it out.
Speaker 3: Took a couple of years. And then I'll also add
Speaker 3: I was hit on a lot when I had gray hair,
Speaker 3: more than when I was in my twenties.
Speaker 2: I'd have I'd be out.
Speaker 3: Getting the mail and you know, a guy would be
Speaker 3: jogging pass. You'd circle back, ask me, you know what
Speaker 3: was going on?
Speaker 2: People at gym?
Speaker 3: And then I realized all this attention I was receiving
Speaker 3: from all these men, from men eighty to one hundred
Speaker 3: years old. They thought I was like a super fit
Speaker 3: former suffragist.
Speaker 2: So anyway, my friend, this is what I wrote about you.
Speaker 3: You WI helped me very much in changing my perspective
Speaker 3: of how I looked. My friend Martha said to me
Speaker 3: one day, why don't you color your hair? I told
Speaker 3: her that I was sick of coloring it, and I
Speaker 3: always admired women with wonderful gray hair. I think it's
Speaker 3: very attractive on certain women. I said it is, Martha said,
Speaker 3: I just don't think you're one of those women. Martha
Speaker 3: is the busiest person I've ever met, and she doesn't
Speaker 3: have time for bullshit, so she's very direct, and she
Speaker 3: also loves fixing things that aren't working.
Speaker 1: Well. See, I do like to fix things that aren't working.
Speaker 1: And this title could possibly I've tried, being nice could
Speaker 1: apply to my life and just so many other people's
Speaker 1: lives that I know. I mean, it's just it's very
Speaker 1: funny title, and we do reach a point. I reach
Speaker 1: it every single day trying to be nice. I wake
Speaker 1: up and say I'm not going to I'm not going
Speaker 1: to say anything to anybody today that's not nice, and
Speaker 1: then of course, five minutes into the day, I find
Speaker 1: something to complain about. But that's that's just life.
Speaker 3: It is life, and you're a busy person who has time.
Speaker 3: I do do a lot. There's many things that I
Speaker 3: talk about in this book besides being nice. I write
Speaker 3: about my marriage, about dogs and kids and taking ballroom
Speaker 3: dancing classes, traveling. But I do circle back a lot
Speaker 3: to kind of exploring what it means to be nice,
Speaker 3: and women have extra expectations on us, expecting us to
Speaker 3: be nice. I've always experienced you as a nice person.
Speaker 2: And I know you're what I think, what some people
Speaker 2: think is nice.
Speaker 3: Maybe is what I tended to do, especially when I
Speaker 3: was younger, which is like people pleasing and trying to
Speaker 3: ingratiate myself with others, and that comes from a place
Speaker 3: of insecurity.
Speaker 2: And you don't have that, you have comm evidence.
Speaker 3: But I know you're nice, and I think a good
Speaker 3: sign of a nice person, especially a woman. I know
Speaker 3: that you have friends that you've had for decades because
Speaker 3: I know them personally, and you have people who have
Speaker 3: worked for you for decades.
Speaker 2: That to me is an indication of a person's character.
Speaker 1: And also of surviving, you know, difficulties with those people
Speaker 1: and being able to speak frankly and honestly. Yes, it's
Speaker 1: not all just oh you you look so great today.
Speaker 1: I can't do that all the time. My friend just
Speaker 1: asked me the other night that she told me that
Speaker 1: her back was hurting her terribly and she was really
Speaker 1: having a hard time. And I said, well, if you
Speaker 1: just exercised more and you lost about twenty five pounds,
Speaker 1: maybe your back wouldn't hurt so much. And she was
Speaker 1: so taken aback. But I'm used to talking to her
Speaker 1: like that because because as we get older, you want
Speaker 1: to be more frank and more honest and more and
Speaker 1: you can't baby everybody all the time, right, And I
Speaker 1: love I love that altercation you had with the neighbor.
Speaker 1: To describe that altercation.
Speaker 3: Okay, so yeah, we had just I've been living here
Speaker 3: very long, and there were we The street I live
Speaker 3: on is behind Martha's property. It's one of the most
Speaker 3: it's a favorite walking street in our town. It's beautiful
Speaker 3: and scenic Martha. It's called Maple Avenue, and Martha planted
Speaker 3: all these maple trees all along Maple Avenue. It's absolutely stunning.
Speaker 3: A lot of people walk with dogs off leash. We
Speaker 3: have a few problem dogs, as Martha knows, because they've
Speaker 3: actually interrupted broadcasts of hers with their screaming and barking
Speaker 3: at the gate. But we have had awfully dogs come
Speaker 3: on our property. We have one dog who's not dog friendly.
Speaker 3: We had this one woman and I call her doodle
Speaker 3: Lady in the book because Simon and Schuster actually made
Speaker 3: me change the breed of her dog so I wouldn't
Speaker 3: get sued by her. Her dogs kept coming on the property,
Speaker 3: and I did the whole you know, it'd be so
Speaker 3: nice if your dogs didn't come on the property, and.
Speaker 2: She did, Oh, they're so friendly, don't worry.
Speaker 3: And this went on for you know, a few weeks
Speaker 3: of you know, me stopping and saying, coming out and talking,
Speaker 3: and then one day the dogs came on and almost
Speaker 3: got in a fight with my dog.
Speaker 2: I jumped in my car.
Speaker 3: I get up at five point thirty, but at noon
Speaker 3: I'm often still in my pajamas because I write all morning.
Speaker 3: I was in my pajamas. I go racing down Maple
Speaker 3: Avenue and then I.
Speaker 2: Saw the doodle Lady and didn't know what to say,
Speaker 2: so I kept driving.
Speaker 3: Then I circled back and I saw they looked uneasy,
Speaker 3: because that's kind of scary. She circled back, and then
Speaker 3: I rolled down the window, and without thinking, I said, look,
Speaker 3: I've tried being nice. The woman actually staggered backwards grabbed
Speaker 3: her dog.
Speaker 1: She thought you were going to kill her.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if those are very powerful words, I learned it's
Speaker 3: kind of like when the kids say no offense, but
Speaker 3: you know what follows is going to hurt. So that
Speaker 3: was the thing, and I write a little bit in
Speaker 3: the book. I knew from reading and talking to friends
Speaker 3: that when you reach a certain age and I could
Speaker 3: say menopause, I understood that you actually stop doing trying
Speaker 3: so hard to ingratiate yourself with everybody you meet. But
Speaker 3: I thought it would happen gradually. I did know that
Speaker 3: one day somebody would spill their coffee on me and
Speaker 3: I would apologize to them for them doing that, and
Speaker 3: the next day I'd open the door and say, get
Speaker 3: off my property. So that's the title essay.
Speaker 1: I had a friend who did the same thing. I
Speaker 1: gave her permission to I have a lot of roads
Speaker 1: on my property. No and they're private and there's no cars,
Speaker 1: and you can walk your dogs very nicely for four
Speaker 1: miles on my property. So I said to her, oh,
Speaker 1: walk your dogs any time, but just make sure they're
Speaker 1: unleashes right, And one day she was she let her
Speaker 1: dogs off the leash, and my dogs were outside, and
Speaker 1: my dogs ran over to her dogs and wanted to,
Speaker 1: you know, play roughly with barking, and you know, my
Speaker 1: dogs were protective of the property.
Speaker 2: Territorialist.
Speaker 1: She called me up and she said, I think you
Speaker 1: should euthanize your dogs. Oh my god. And I said,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about. You were on my property
Speaker 1: with your dogs unleashed, and you could have easily just
Speaker 1: gathered them up and walked in the opposite direction if
Speaker 1: you had them on a leash. And I said, you're
Speaker 1: not welcome here anymore, right, And that was my end
Speaker 1: of being nice.
Speaker 2: Well that was you were super nice to let her
Speaker 2: do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But people, it's both sides of the story. And
Speaker 1: that's what I really found interesting about this book. It
Speaker 1: is both sides of the story, right, because your patience
Speaker 1: gives out at a certain point and right, and the
Speaker 1: other people's patients also gives out at a certain point.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: And it's a hard transition to make from being the sweetest,
Speaker 1: loveliest neighbor in the whole world. Don't ever turn on me,
Speaker 1: I'm telling you right.
Speaker 3: Now, I would never have reason to. You are a
Speaker 3: wonderful neighbor, a very generous, kind friend. I just want
Speaker 3: to say, I'm an animal nut. So your chows are
Speaker 3: the They're ambassadors for the breed. So for them, I
Speaker 3: know how friendly they are. So for anyone to say
Speaker 3: that it should be no.
Speaker 1: All of your dogs are horse my feeling and well, anyway,
Speaker 1: now we've gotten through them being nice party, and I
Speaker 1: just want you want to know who exactly you are.
Speaker 1: Anne Leary is a best selling author of six books,
Speaker 1: including The Good House, which was made into a feature
Speaker 1: film starring Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Kleine. I loved that movie.
Speaker 1: Her essay about marriage about her marriage in Trouble was
Speaker 1: that your marriage Yeah, was adapted for the Prime video
Speaker 1: series Modern Love starring Tina Fay and John Slatterly. Anne
Speaker 1: is an animal lover and accomplished equestrian, and I often
Speaker 1: see her on the writing trails in Bedford area, up
Speaker 1: where we both live. Her latest book, I've Tried Being
Speaker 1: Nice is out right now, and it's so fun to
Speaker 1: have you come across the street and sit and talk
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 2: I'm so thrilled and I'm loving your setup here.
Speaker 1: Do you remember when we first met, when you moved here?
Speaker 1: What year was it? When you moved here.
Speaker 3: You know, I think we bought our place in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: but we did some work and it was around twenty seventeen. Yes,
Speaker 3: Muffin dwadle are real estate extraordinary agent brought me over.
Speaker 3: I think I had met you at maybe some parties
Speaker 3: in the past, but of course you wouldn't remember. But
Speaker 3: she brought me over and you were very, very, very lovely,
Speaker 3: and soon you had a dinner party and you just
Speaker 3: were very welcoming and we were just it was just great.
Speaker 3: It's been great getting to know you, and I'm always
Speaker 3: learning more about you, which I find you fascinating.
Speaker 1: No, but what's fun is that this neighborhood has really
Speaker 1: improved with the new homeowners that are coming, and I'm
Speaker 1: so excited about living in Bedford now. When I first
Speaker 1: came here, it was really quiet, and the Sunday nights
Speaker 1: you just wanted to just go back to New York
Speaker 1: with everybody else, because everybody just had this massive exodus
Speaker 1: back to back to the city after a pleasant country weekend.
Speaker 1: But now more people are staying, they're living out here.
Speaker 1: I live out here full time and I commute. I
Speaker 1: do the reverse commute to New York And it's kind
Speaker 1: of a fabulous thing because I can be in the
Speaker 1: city for dinner and get home and wake up with
Speaker 1: the roosters crowing in the peacocks squawking, and et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. But to have you and Dennis Leary. Anne
Speaker 1: is married to the actor Dennis Leary, who's not only
Speaker 1: an actor, he's a comedian and he is a writer.
Speaker 1: And that's a lot of fun. She has two fabulous children,
Speaker 1: grown children. How did you meet Jennis in the first place?
Speaker 2: So, Dennis and I.
Speaker 3: I met Dennis when I transferred to Emerson College from
Speaker 3: Bennington College and I was a writing major and I
Speaker 3: was told by the head of the department, I should
Speaker 3: take this comedy writing class with this man, Dennis Leary,
Speaker 3: who I thought would be in his forties. I was
Speaker 3: twenty and then this, so you know, Dennis was a
Speaker 3: kind of a ginger, kind of blondish. You guys with
Speaker 3: fair skin, they when they're twenty five, they look like
Speaker 3: they're fourteen.
Speaker 2: Kind of.
Speaker 3: He came in, but he was super good. He was
Speaker 3: super cute. Anyway he walked in, I didn't think he
Speaker 3: was the teacher. He was the first thing he said
Speaker 3: you could smoke in class, and he said, smoke him
Speaker 3: if you got him.
Speaker 2: Well, like they say in the military. Anyway, he was
Speaker 2: my teach.
Speaker 3: Sure, I know it's very scandalous now, but it was
Speaker 3: a super fun class. Years later, by the way, I
Speaker 3: took the class, I got an a and we actually
Speaker 3: started dating right after the class was over.
Speaker 1: Not during because that would have been appropriate.
Speaker 3: No, yes, I earned my grade, honestly. But he actually
Speaker 3: then we went on a couple of days. He stayed
Speaker 3: over one night, and he never left Martha to this day.
Speaker 3: It's been forty years. He turned out he didn't really
Speaker 3: have a.
Speaker 2: Place to live. I didn't know that, so he just
Speaker 2: came rat it's in Boston. So we've been through a lot.
Speaker 3: He actually, you know, he was just like a starting
Speaker 3: out an open mic comic, and then he kind of
Speaker 3: found his stride and became I guess famous after Yeah,
Speaker 3: he gave and then so that was fun.
Speaker 2: We got to enjoy that together.
Speaker 3: There's a chapter in my book called Red Carpet Diaries
Speaker 3: about our many like mishaps, fumbling along the Red carpet
Speaker 3: when we were total rubes at first, and now we
Speaker 3: kind of know what we're doing as you obviously know.
Speaker 1: And these are twotiful people, and it's with her beautiful
Speaker 1: blonde blocks. Now, thank you, mind I don't, but don't
Speaker 1: you think you look better with blonde? Absolutely? Martha?
Speaker 3: When I would look at photographs then with my blonde friends,
Speaker 3: I would always I was like, who's.
Speaker 2: That old lady?
Speaker 1: Who's the mother?
Speaker 3: Because it wasn't I didn't have that wonderful shock of
Speaker 3: gray or the pet it was white.
Speaker 2: It wasn't.
Speaker 3: You were right, you know, That's what I was. I
Speaker 3: meant to say before. It's not Martha was helping.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you know a finach in your teeth and your
Speaker 2: friend doesn't tell.
Speaker 1: You, no, I wasn't being a bitch.
Speaker 2: I just you weren't the only went by the way.
Speaker 1: We're prettier than you were letting yourself. Thank you, and
Speaker 1: more tried. And how many more men hit on you now?
Speaker 1: Is a blonde?
Speaker 2: I think now they're in you know I helped, There wasn't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know, but they I think it was
Speaker 3: mostly these older guys thought she's fit for being nineties.
Speaker 1: Well to Dennis, you have two children, yes, how old
Speaker 1: they were?
Speaker 2: Not really thirty? I had to say that because I
Speaker 2: was just thirty a few years ago, Martha.
Speaker 3: I I just was thirty not long ago.
Speaker 2: They're wonderful kids.
Speaker 1: And Anne Ann Leary is just I did the math
Speaker 1: this morning when I found out when you were born,
Speaker 1: and you're just three years older than my daughter, So
Speaker 1: I could.
Speaker 2: Beat your mother. Well, that's shocking.
Speaker 1: And I consider you much more unequal to me. I
Speaker 1: think because I consider all my friends more equal to me,
Speaker 1: because I like I hang out with younger people.
Speaker 2: I do too. I had got people of all ages.
Speaker 3: But I actually think i'm the same age as I
Speaker 3: can't guess. People say, but I think you might think
Speaker 3: i'm your age because you're so much more active.
Speaker 2: Than I am. You do you pack so much more
Speaker 2: into a day, and you're so.
Speaker 1: You're playing so much tennis and doing all that stuff.
Speaker 2: I do that. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: And I met all your tennis buddies the other night, Yes,
Speaker 1: at your performance at the Bedford Playhouse and your husband.
Speaker 2: Thank you for coming.
Speaker 1: It was great grade to sit there and hear you
Speaker 1: bantered with each other. It was very nice.
Speaker 2: It was super fun.
Speaker 1: What is it like living with Dennis who comes and
Speaker 1: goes like I.
Speaker 2: Mean, he does he's busy.
Speaker 1: He's busy with his career. He's always going to Canada.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what, I think it might be a
Speaker 3: key to We've been married a very long time. We've
Speaker 3: been living together a long time and married a long time,
Speaker 3: and especially early on in the marriage, I never saw him.
Speaker 3: I think that's the key to a successful marriage. I'm
Speaker 3: fascinated by him. It's wonderful when he comes home. He's
Speaker 3: always works with really interesting people. As you know, Martha,
Speaker 3: I'm a bit of a hermit, so I like to
Speaker 3: hear what exciting things he's done. But I like to
Speaker 3: stay home. But I just find him funny. I think
Speaker 3: we just we get along. We have great history together.
Speaker 3: We've been together so long. No matter where he is,
Speaker 3: he'll call me and say, turn on CNN or or
Speaker 3: turn on this channel because it's somebody we both have
Speaker 3: a thing because in the past we knew. It's just
Speaker 3: fun to have that kind of history. You probably have
Speaker 3: friends like that, you know.
Speaker 1: It's just so you were trained as a writer. At
Speaker 1: what point did you write your first book? So is
Speaker 1: that when you were married.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, my first book was called An Innocent Abroad.
Speaker 3: It was just you know, borrowed from Mark Twain's book
Speaker 3: but I but mine was an innocent comma abroad. It
Speaker 3: was about having my son in London by accident. He
Speaker 3: was supposed to be born in the United States. But
Speaker 3: we went for a weekend, I went into premature labor
Speaker 3: and six months later we came home. And it's kind
Speaker 3: of how my husband's career was launched. He wrote because
Speaker 3: we couldn't leave, he wrote this one man show the
Speaker 3: Edinburgh Festival and it got awards and he came back
Speaker 3: and did it the Actress Playhouse.
Speaker 2: So that so that was that was fortuitious, Yes, it was,
Speaker 2: It actually was.
Speaker 3: It was scary and then it was good because it
Speaker 3: all's well, that ends well. You know my son, he's fabulous.
Speaker 1: He's very he's like seven feet, all the handsomest boys
Speaker 1: and a writer.
Speaker 2: Also yeah yeah, producer, yeah actually yeah. So yeah.
Speaker 3: So that but that book I didn't tell anyone, even Dennis.
Speaker 3: I wrote like five chapters in an outline and secretly
Speaker 3: sent it to this editor who was a friend of
Speaker 3: a friend, because I was sure I didn't want the
Speaker 3: shame of, you know, saying So it did get published
Speaker 3: and then this is I think my sixth book, but.
Speaker 2: I usually write fiction.
Speaker 3: These are that and this book are my only nonfiction books.
Speaker 2: I prefer fiction.
Speaker 1: So where do you find the inspiration for each of
Speaker 1: your books? I mean, start with the first one.
Speaker 3: Well and Innocent Abroad was you know this this thing happened.
Speaker 3: It was very stressful and traumatic. I waited years until
Speaker 3: it wasn't anymore. I found actually a friend of mine.
Speaker 3: This was nineteen ninety when that happened, so there were
Speaker 3: no cell phones. I wrote on paper, Martha to my
Speaker 3: friends in the United States. And I have one very
Speaker 3: funny friend who's also a writer, and I wrote even
Speaker 3: though I don't know why, she sent me the letters
Speaker 3: when she found out I was writing the book, and
Speaker 3: I actually wrote funny things, funny things that were going on.
Speaker 1: I don't use carbon paper.
Speaker 3: I did when I was in school and write, you
Speaker 3: know when I would write short story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had to yes, carb I forgot about that.
Speaker 1: Well, I used carbon paper any letters I wrote, like
Speaker 1: to my husband. We got married in nineteen sixty one,
Speaker 1: so wow, a long long time ago. But all the
Speaker 1: letters I wrote to him, I kept carbon copies, so
Speaker 1: some were by hand and some were on a typewriter.
Speaker 1: But it was so easy. With a typewriter, you just
Speaker 1: put in your yeah, your carbon, you know, they had
Speaker 1: two sheets of paper and one sheet of carbon. But
Speaker 1: I kept all those. That was so good because we
Speaker 1: didn't have computers, right, we didn't have you know, word.
Speaker 3: Typewriters that we're right. I forgot about that we would
Speaker 3: have to Yeah, did.
Speaker 1: You write your first book on a typewriter or by no?
Speaker 2: By then I had probably a word or maybe I
Speaker 2: had an early computer. But yeah, I don't know how.
Speaker 1: Nineteen eighty two I got my first computer.
Speaker 2: Wow, okay, so yeah.
Speaker 1: So then I started using that to write on.
Speaker 2: I don't know how people wrote books.
Speaker 3: But my last novel was The Foundling, and it was
Speaker 3: set in the nineteen twenties, and I don't know how
Speaker 3: people researched books.
Speaker 2: It was so easy.
Speaker 3: It's so easy now you can just, you know, find
Speaker 3: anything online. Although I did go to place where the
Speaker 3: book was set multiple times. I think you actually have
Speaker 3: to go and be in a place. But I don't
Speaker 3: know how people researched exhaustively.
Speaker 1: Well, after you read I've tried being nice listeners, then
Speaker 1: please read The Foundling and then also read The Good House.
Speaker 2: A good House thank you, Martha.
Speaker 1: Than because those are the ones I love. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I subscribed to Founding because I remember living, you know,
Speaker 1: as your neighbor, hearing little bits about the Foundling over
Speaker 1: a period that takes you a couple of years to yes.
Speaker 3: The Foundling was loosely based on a discovery I made
Speaker 3: about my grandmother, who I never really knew, even though
Speaker 3: she lived till I was a mother myself. But she
Speaker 3: worked at a eugenics asylum in the nineteen twenties, and
Speaker 3: it was called the Laurelton State Village for feeble minded
Speaker 3: women of child pairing age.
Speaker 2: I found that eugenics mean so thank you.
Speaker 3: I didn't know either at first, but eugenics was actually
Speaker 3: a household word in the early twentieth century. It was
Speaker 3: the law of the It wasn't like a scary cult.
Speaker 3: It was actually, you know, the Immigration Act of nineteen
Speaker 3: twenty four was a eugenics law.
Speaker 2: It actually limited immigrants.
Speaker 3: From certain parts of Europe, and it's the law that
Speaker 3: kept Anne Frank from coming here. It had to do
Speaker 3: with keeping the right types of people coming. And it
Speaker 3: also where my grandmother worked is where they sent bad
Speaker 3: girls and they called them feeble minded because they were
Speaker 3: prostitutes or they had been very sexual proclivities. Yes, in
Speaker 3: those days, those things were against the law, and morality
Speaker 3: was confused with criminality. And it was very sad but
Speaker 3: also fascinating to find out all about it and realized
Speaker 3: that my grandmother, she worked as a secretary at this place.
Speaker 2: She never spoke about it, so I think she was
Speaker 2: embarrassed or when she realized, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I will never know. She probably spoke to my mother
Speaker 3: about it. My mother never really wanted to talk. My
Speaker 3: grandmother ended up very troubled. She was an orphan and
Speaker 3: so I don't have much his and my mother and
Speaker 3: she had to cut ties when I was a little girl,
Speaker 3: so I've kind of been fascinated by her as a result.
Speaker 3: What happens when you cut off a grandmother to a
Speaker 3: curious daughter, that grandmother becomes fascinating.
Speaker 1: Are we going to see that in a movie?
Speaker 2: It has been optioned as a limited series. Oh, that
Speaker 2: would be yeah, that would be good.
Speaker 1: Because that kind of history, that that people are kind
Speaker 1: of embarrassed about, that America actually adopted some of those
Speaker 1: policies is very fascinating and it would be an honest
Speaker 1: thing to show it. Yeah, I just watched the is
Speaker 1: a feature film of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her and
Speaker 1: her first big accomplishment of pelic cart arguing about sex
Speaker 1: discrimination involving a man and the tax law. It's interesting
Speaker 1: watch the movie, I will, but it's cooled. I don't
Speaker 1: even remember the name. I'll think of the name, Okay,
Speaker 1: But that I mean that that we should know, we
Speaker 1: should be very aware of what is because right now
Speaker 1: so much of our law is being versed, so much
Speaker 1: of our constitution is being questioned so much, and it's uh,
Speaker 1: we have to understand what all of this is about.
Speaker 2: Yes, we were not taught.
Speaker 3: I mean so the Nazis learned a lot of their
Speaker 3: horrible policies.
Speaker 2: They learn from our eugenics.
Speaker 3: You know, the final solution of eugenics is genocide, and
Speaker 3: fortunately the United States didn't ever go that far. And
Speaker 3: when World War II happened, that's when eugenics came to
Speaker 3: a screeching halt in the United States. In the UK,
Speaker 3: but people in the UK are taught about eugenics in
Speaker 3: public school and the United States really it's quiet, like
Speaker 3: you know many things, It's just it was short lived.
Speaker 3: Why revisit I think there's a good reason. Why why
Speaker 3: do why go back there?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Interesting?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And so what about your writing habits? Because you are
Speaker 1: writing all the time, I try to, I write it
Speaker 1: and does not answer her phone all the time. It's
Speaker 1: a texture. Maybe you'll get to answer in a couple
Speaker 1: of days. What are your habits there?
Speaker 2: So I like to write in the morning. I'm the
Speaker 2: brightest shock you might not believe that, because this is
Speaker 2: the best. This is the best, Marta, this is the
Speaker 2: best I could be. Yeah, you know, I like the mornings.
Speaker 1: I'm a morning person, are you Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean I have confidence when I can write a
Speaker 3: passage in the morning and think, okay, this book. I've
Speaker 3: got a book here, And then I'll have lunch and
Speaker 3: then return to it and read the same passage and
Speaker 3: feel my face like burning with shep. Just like my
Speaker 3: confidence kind of wanes. And so I don't write, you know,
Speaker 3: after too much in the afternoons. I try to get
Speaker 3: other stuff done then. But I do like to write
Speaker 3: every morning if I can. And I tell people who
Speaker 3: are new to writing if a book is really working
Speaker 3: for me.
Speaker 2: I used to say, I'm writing a novel and it's.
Speaker 3: Just come alive and the characters are making things happen
Speaker 3: without me. I used to keep going until it ran
Speaker 3: itself out, and then the next morning I'd kind of
Speaker 3: be in the dol drums again. And now I've learned
Speaker 3: to stop. I stop it to put it away, because
Speaker 3: the next morning I get to go back to it,
Speaker 3: it's still alive.
Speaker 2: You know. That's just like a little.
Speaker 1: And that's good to know. You learned yourself.
Speaker 2: I learned, Yeah, you learn.
Speaker 3: Over the course of time, each book taught me something
Speaker 3: about writing.
Speaker 1: It's been testa So what three pieces of advice would
Speaker 1: you give to aspiring novelists because there's probably a lot
Speaker 1: of them listening to you right now.
Speaker 3: Oh well, I always tell writers. First of all, if
Speaker 3: you're an aspiring writer and you're writing, you are a writer.
Speaker 3: I do believe for every published author, there's probably a
Speaker 3: thousand more talented writers that just haven't been published yet.
Speaker 2: Keep writing. Find out trusted friend.
Speaker 3: And this is the thing I say all the time
Speaker 3: to young writers especially, Write everything as if you're writing
Speaker 3: a letter to your best friend who gets you. That's
Speaker 3: what I did with my first book, when my friend
Speaker 3: saved my letters. I wrote in the tone I wrote
Speaker 3: those letters to her. And when you write that way,
Speaker 3: and I certainly did that in this book. I wanted
Speaker 3: to be accessible. And I also have learned a lot
Speaker 3: from my husband too, who did stand up comedy for years,
Speaker 3: to trust the audience, to trust the reader, trust that
Speaker 3: they are going to get I trust, you know, write
Speaker 3: it to your best friend who gets you.
Speaker 2: I think writers often try to write in a very writerly.
Speaker 3: Voice and also are kind of paralyzed with this thinking
Speaker 3: of the reader, as this very stern critic at the
Speaker 3: New York Times, he's going to hate it. And instead
Speaker 3: think of your sister, your friend, your husband, whoever, your partner.
Speaker 3: Because in that way you don't underestimate the reader. Readers
Speaker 3: are smart, they will get they will get what you're writing,
Speaker 3: and it just makes the whole thing.
Speaker 2: I think it makes for a better tone in writings.
Speaker 1: So do you solitary? Some people, some writers say it's
Speaker 1: so lonely to be a writer. Do you find that
Speaker 1: it's lonely? No? But good?
Speaker 3: But it is hard when I'm writing fiction. So when
Speaker 3: my kids were at home, I would be so caught
Speaker 3: up in my story. I'd be driving them and they'd
Speaker 3: be like mo, Mo, Mom, I would be not that attentive.
Speaker 3: So I kind of live in a kind of fantasy
Speaker 3: world a lot when I'm writing. But I don't find
Speaker 3: it solitary. I find it lonesome when I've finished a novel,
Speaker 3: especially The Good House.
Speaker 2: That main character, He'll be Good was.
Speaker 3: I just loved her and I was sad, and I
Speaker 3: wrote it in the first person, so I was kind
Speaker 3: of her for a while, and I was sad to
Speaker 3: not be here at any posts. I kind of missed that.
Speaker 3: But no, it's it's it's not that lonely. I'm a
Speaker 3: loner though, as you know, I kind of spent a
Speaker 3: lot of time by myself.
Speaker 2: My animal.
Speaker 1: No, you do, you are an animal over talk about that.
Speaker 1: When did that all start?
Speaker 2: Al So, we moved all the time growing up.
Speaker 1: Why what was your father?
Speaker 3: My dad was in the military when I was very little,
Speaker 3: but he also then it was just in marketing. He
Speaker 3: worked at these corporations at various in these cities in
Speaker 3: the Midwest that the whole town worked. We're seeing Wisconsin,
Speaker 3: like which which companies Johnson Wax and we're se Dow
Speaker 3: Chemical Company. You know, we worked for Carnie he is
Speaker 3: the grass is always greener kind of person.
Speaker 2: He was just chronically unsatisfied.
Speaker 3: I think, and you know, he's read this book and
Speaker 3: I write about it and he acknowledges that. But you know,
Speaker 3: we were uprooted a lot. We moved every couple of years,
Speaker 3: so it did help me learn to make friends. It
Speaker 3: actually made me an avid reader. We would often move
Speaker 3: in the summer. I kind of lived in libraries. I
Speaker 3: knew the one thing familiar in any town is the
Speaker 3: Dewey decimal system. I knew where all the books were
Speaker 3: in the stacks. And I really got into reading at
Speaker 3: a very young age.
Speaker 2: But I think.
Speaker 1: Also it was the best book you read while you
Speaker 1: were in junior high school. Oh, my goodness, whatever.
Speaker 3: I remember the first big book I read, and it
Speaker 3: was The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. I was
Speaker 3: probably maybe younger than middle school.
Speaker 2: Because I got a lot of attention. I had read.
Speaker 3: I always read books about animals, and I had read
Speaker 3: The Red Pony by John Steinbeck that I loved and
Speaker 3: decided to read the Grapes of Wrap And I tell
Speaker 3: people with kids john Steinbeck is super accessible to young readers.
Speaker 2: It's not complicated.
Speaker 3: But what was exciting to me about that book is
Speaker 3: the structure is simple, but it was fascinating to me.
Speaker 3: So if you recall, it's like the first chapter is
Speaker 3: about this Jode family, and then the next chapter Steinbeck
Speaker 3: pulls out and shows the dustball during the depression. Each
Speaker 3: chapter alternated like that. It's very simple, but to me
Speaker 3: as a young girl, instead of just the story, I
Speaker 3: actually paid attention to the writing and the structure. So
Speaker 3: probably that was the most influential. But I got a
Speaker 3: lot of attention. It's a big book, and so I'd.
Speaker 1: Grown up to get a lot of probably very impressed.
Speaker 1: But about high school, it was the most exciting book
Speaker 1: you read in.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, do you know what's so funny? I thought
Speaker 2: The fountain Head was absolutely the sexiest book and the
Speaker 2: most romantic book. Well now I think it's on. I mean,
Speaker 2: all the books I loved are on banned book.
Speaker 1: Lists, and I can't understand that at all.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, our library here in Katona has this
Speaker 3: wonderful band book club and they read all the banned
Speaker 3: books because they're fabulous books.
Speaker 2: And it's too bad and.
Speaker 1: How sad that children aren't exposed to those in my
Speaker 1: town in Noteley, New Jersey, we were allowed to proceed
Speaker 1: at my age to the next library. There was the
Speaker 1: Children's room, than the Stockton room, than the adult library.
Speaker 1: So there were three libraries, and if you passed the
Speaker 1: tests in the children's room, you were promoted to the
Speaker 1: Stockton Oh my god, and then the stock The same
Speaker 1: thing happened. So by the time I was twelve, I
Speaker 1: was in the adult library, I'm sure. And I read
Speaker 1: Marjorie Morning Star. Oh yes, And that was sexy, yes,
Speaker 1: so sexy and so interesting. And so I propose because
Speaker 1: at that time there were very few Jewish people in
Speaker 1: my school, but I got to know all of them
Speaker 1: through that book. And I loved reading that book. And
Speaker 1: then I read Oh, from Here to Eternity. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's another crazy good book.
Speaker 2: Books were sexy, I remember, And they're not like that anymore.
Speaker 2: Passed around the bus, yeah, remember Jacqueline Susanne. Of course
Speaker 2: we would pass them around. They'd open up to the
Speaker 2: dirty pages.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know. It was a different time. I
Speaker 3: guess kids watch stuff on their phones now.
Speaker 1: But I read all the history, all the books about
Speaker 1: Chica and the and and the Depression, and the John
Speaker 1: Steinbeck's and the Pearl Book, did you read Pearl books?
Speaker 1: Well the Earth?
Speaker 2: I feel like I did the history of.
Speaker 1: China in one novel. So interesting. Yah, and kids are
Speaker 1: missing out on all this stuff now?
Speaker 2: Is that band?
Speaker 1: No? I don't think it's banned. I hope not. I
Speaker 1: hope because it's the it's really the simplistic history of
Speaker 1: the emerging China.
Speaker 2: It's accessible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very very good. So people will probably write and
Speaker 1: say that's not crappy book. But I found it extremely interesting.
Speaker 2: I know you're so well read.
Speaker 3: I rely on Martha because we'll be riding through the
Speaker 3: woods and Martha can tell she did.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: She's modest, but she can tell every tree without leaves
Speaker 3: are on or off. I've begume to rely on her knowledge.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you remember this. We were looking
Speaker 3: at a house. I love looking at houses for sale.
Speaker 3: We both we have a friend who's broken. Sometimes she
Speaker 3: shows us these very impressive estates just.
Speaker 1: But we love looking at house.
Speaker 2: We were curious there was one that had this amazing
Speaker 2: It was a beautiful home and had a marble mantle
Speaker 2: piece and there was this Latin inscription on the top.
Speaker 3: I'm so used to Martha knowing everything. I turned to
Speaker 3: Martha and said, Martha, what does that say? And then
Speaker 3: you started to you knew a few of the words,
Speaker 3: and then you turned to me and said, what am I?
Speaker 3: You're walking Wikipedia? But I said, kind of you kind of.
Speaker 1: So in your books, at least you stay pretty local
Speaker 1: in your books. At least four of your books include
Speaker 1: New England as part of your story.
Speaker 2: Yes, they do.
Speaker 1: And for those of who have never lived in New England,
Speaker 1: what do you love about this area of the country.
Speaker 1: You lived elsewhere, but you keep coming back here.
Speaker 3: Well, I think because I moved from Racine, Wisconsin to Marblehead,
Speaker 3: Massachusetts at age fourteen.
Speaker 1: And that's a beautiful place.
Speaker 3: It is beautiful, the Northville Boston I love. I have
Speaker 3: such a strong heart for that part of New England.
Speaker 2: But it was hard.
Speaker 3: It was very different. We lived in places that people
Speaker 3: moved all the time. And then I moved to Marblehead
Speaker 3: where you know, not only the kids had lived there
Speaker 3: all their lives.
Speaker 2: So I had their grandparents.
Speaker 3: I had classmates, multiple classmates who had like the cove
Speaker 3: was named after their family, the street was named it
Speaker 3: felt and so there was just this I think it
Speaker 3: was good that I came as an outsider with a
Speaker 3: weird accent, and that I quickly changed to fit in.
Speaker 3: I just became very aware of this New England personality
Speaker 3: that is quite distinct. I think it's as a kind
Speaker 3: of a regional personality. I love a good towny from
Speaker 3: New England. People who won't necessarily hug you, even though
Speaker 3: you might be their best friend, but if you're in trouble,
Speaker 3: they will have your back every time.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: So I just kind of love that your book.
Speaker 1: The Children, it is about an unconventional New England family
Speaker 1: which which is sharing a sprawling, beautiful lakeside home. Explaining
Speaker 1: why this book is such a story of survival.
Speaker 2: Well, so that we had a little cabin on Lake Waramuk.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you know where they are.
Speaker 3: So that was this other part of New England, which
Speaker 3: is Connecticut, old money wealth, and I really explored that,
Speaker 3: and I was kind of familiar with that in Marblehead,
Speaker 3: but especially that old Yankee, the people who they have
Speaker 3: millions and hundreds of millions probably in a trust fund,
Speaker 3: but they turned their lights off because they don't want
Speaker 3: to pay for electricity.
Speaker 1: I knew very parsimonious.
Speaker 2: Partimonious is a good word for it.
Speaker 3: And you know, so anyway, I explored that it's about
Speaker 3: Uh did.
Speaker 1: Weas earned our lights off in our house because we
Speaker 1: didn't have any money? I read with a flashlight, did
Speaker 1: you Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, because I was supposed to have
Speaker 1: my lights out and I would be under the coverage
Speaker 1: reading with a light right, so nobody could tell that
Speaker 1: I was still up and reading.
Speaker 3: It's so funny, I Dennis Lye full the lights on
Speaker 3: and I run around it and turn off lights, just
Speaker 3: because the way I was brought up.
Speaker 2: But our kids have no idea. Remember if you called
Speaker 2: a friend who lived in the next town over, it.
Speaker 1: Costs oh yeah, total call.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so your parents, you know, you'd have to babysit
Speaker 3: an extra night to pay for.
Speaker 1: Do you remember your phone number from from childhood?
Speaker 2: Well? I had so many? Oh yeah, but I think
Speaker 2: I do remember.
Speaker 3: I think it's still probably my mother's phone number. She
Speaker 3: stayed at Marblehead my dad moved on.
Speaker 1: I remember I remember my noteley well, it was a
Speaker 1: party line North seven seven nine to two. And then
Speaker 1: I remember my first married phone, which was at Columbia
Speaker 1: University University five five two eight oh number of feet
Speaker 1: in a mile? I remember that and so weird? Oh wow,
Speaker 1: that I would remember these random phones.
Speaker 2: Yeah, remember we memorized all our friends.
Speaker 1: Now, yes, oh yeah, we didn't have We didn't have
Speaker 1: a direct dial phone. Now do Now I knew everybody's
Speaker 1: phone number. I don't know my daughter's phone number right now,
Speaker 1: I have.
Speaker 2: To lock it up.
Speaker 3: I don't know my mother's I have to look it
Speaker 3: up too. It's embarrassing. But yeah, but I know my
Speaker 3: friend from fourth grade.
Speaker 1: Well, now your next book I want to show write
Speaker 1: Outtakes from a Marriage. Okay, was that the most painful
Speaker 1: book to write?
Speaker 2: You know, it wasn't really.
Speaker 3: So it's it's a you know, it's a book about
Speaker 3: a woman who is married to a person who becomes famous,
Speaker 3: and it, you know, describes their experiences on the red carpet.
Speaker 2: But he's having an affair.
Speaker 3: So everyone thought it was a bummer because when this
Speaker 3: came out, everyone thought I was writing about our friend
Speaker 3: Elizabeth Hurley, who is our friend and is a lovely person.
Speaker 3: But you know, she and Dennis had done a movie anyway,
Speaker 3: so it was like all over page six and it
Speaker 3: kind of was a bummer. It wasn't at all about that.
Speaker 3: It was that part wasn't autobiographical, but.
Speaker 1: Just on a side. Did you watch Elizabeth Hurley's Sons movie?
Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh, no, but I was. My Dennis is
Speaker 2: one of his godfathers.
Speaker 1: Oh he is a movie. Oh and she's in it.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm not supprised.
Speaker 1: Very weird movie. Watch it in the middle of the night.
Speaker 1: Somehow I got to watch that movie. It's very weird.
Speaker 1: He smiles a lot, very he is handsome. He's a
Speaker 1: handsome boy. Yeah, but what what inspired you to write
Speaker 1: that book about about? You know, the difficulty?
Speaker 3: I saw, you know, right, they say, right, but you
Speaker 3: know I have you know, it's it's interesting. I feel
Speaker 3: like it's a unique experience I have of being walking
Speaker 3: on a red carpet with a person who's famous. What
Speaker 3: happens is the photographers will do this thing of they'll
Speaker 3: be polite and take pictures, and then they.
Speaker 2: Say to me, can you move? Can you move out
Speaker 2: of the thing?
Speaker 3: Because I'm known and what they call a waste of
Speaker 3: editorial space and they want to have a famous person
Speaker 3: next to do I just have funny things that I thought, I,
Speaker 3: you know, I would add to that.
Speaker 2: But I also just I was also right.
Speaker 1: About funny or bitter? Maybe did you ever feel bitter
Speaker 1: about that?
Speaker 2: I don't know if that which No, no, I wasn't.
Speaker 3: But the first book, which was about our son my
Speaker 3: helpful editor first, So this was a memoir. The first
Speaker 3: it was my agent, I'm my editor. He read it
Speaker 3: and he said to me, you know, I like it.
Speaker 3: I just wish the narrator were more likable. And I
Speaker 3: said me too. I've been working on that all my
Speaker 3: life because I was the narrator. It was about me,
Speaker 3: and he actually thought I was a little bitter in that,
Speaker 3: and he was right, and I took it. I fixed that.
Speaker 3: I don't like that in a memoir. I don't want
Speaker 3: to read how angry a person is. Maybe in out
Speaker 3: takes from a marriage the character is angry.
Speaker 2: But again I usually write.
Speaker 3: About things when they're behind me. So that Modern Love
Speaker 3: piece that is in this at my new essay collection
Speaker 3: in an expanded thing. It's about a time when our
Speaker 3: marriage went through a rough patch that lasted three years
Speaker 3: and we actually thought we were going to get a divorce,
Speaker 3: and we didn't.
Speaker 2: Tennis saved our marriage.
Speaker 3: We went to marriage counseling, and the piece I wrote
Speaker 3: for Modern Love was well received and so, but I
Speaker 3: couldn't write that until that was behind us for a
Speaker 3: few years. When it's when you're in it, you are bitter.
Speaker 3: I couldn't have written that the way I did, which
Speaker 3: was with the little humor.
Speaker 1: Did you live in the same house when you were
Speaker 1: breaking up?
Speaker 3: We did, but we had a couple of houses, so
Speaker 3: it's like we had a house in the country and
Speaker 3: the house in the city. We did, and we thought
Speaker 3: the kids were being horribly traumatized by our very troubled marriage.
Speaker 3: And when I wrote this piece years later for The Times,
Speaker 3: I sent it as I always do, to my family
Speaker 3: to make sure no one's embarrassed to.
Speaker 2: Embarrassed by it, and my kids were shocked. They had no.
Speaker 3: Idea we had any So I guess we did a
Speaker 3: good job of hiding.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so if you write too soon.
Speaker 3: One of my favorite essays is Nora Ephron and her
Speaker 3: famous quote is everything is copy. Not everything is copy
Speaker 3: for me when it intrudes on the privacy of those
Speaker 3: I love.
Speaker 2: But almost everything is copy.
Speaker 3: And it's only funny though with time, and I like
Speaker 3: to be funny and not bitter.
Speaker 1: That's a very nice trait, and it comes across except
Speaker 1: to the neighbor.
Speaker 3: Yes, I know, maybe you don't know. When I moved
Speaker 3: here is when I stopped being so nice.
Speaker 1: So why did you move to Bedford of all places?
Speaker 1: What do you here?
Speaker 3: Well, so we were downsizing and we wanted to get
Speaker 3: rid of this. We had a big farm in the
Speaker 3: country and many acres, and we had the place in
Speaker 3: the city. Horses and yeah, horses. We just wanted a
Speaker 3: smaller place. Our kids had moved out. We loved that
Speaker 3: this was on the train. But I'd also been coming
Speaker 3: to the Bedford Hunter Pace for twenty years and I
Speaker 3: wanted I knew all the trails, so I kind of
Speaker 3: knew it that way, and we bought a house that's
Speaker 3: right behind where that pay starts. At the time, I
Speaker 3: looked on the satellite image and saw this property across
Speaker 3: the street that I thought, I thought your Your paddocks
Speaker 3: were so square. I thought they were soccer fields, and
Speaker 3: I said, WHOA, let's like buyer beware, I think there's
Speaker 3: a really nice like school boarding school the street.
Speaker 2: Because of the paddocks.
Speaker 3: Did you think I thought there were soccer fields? But
Speaker 3: it was Martha Stewart's property. Our pets love my dogs
Speaker 3: sit upstairs in the window, and they every day watch
Speaker 3: Martha Stewart living because there's so many, so much going
Speaker 3: on here. My horse I used to ride here, wanted
Speaker 3: to dump me and live in her barn because the
Speaker 3: animals here are have a great life and are fascinating.
Speaker 1: And the field and the fields are great pastures, you know,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, the horses do like I feel so
Speaker 1: sorry when I see a horse or two and a
Speaker 1: little little paddock with no grass and then just hate
Speaker 1: to eat right like at my house. Yeah, I feel
Speaker 1: I feel always so sad that would.
Speaker 2: Be my house.
Speaker 1: But I'm so glad that you did move in across
Speaker 1: the street. It's been such a pleasure to have you
Speaker 1: and Dennis and the children as neighbors. And what are
Speaker 1: the kids doing now?
Speaker 3: Our daughter is writing. She's about to go to law.
Speaker 3: She works in writers rooms for television shows, so she
Speaker 3: it's like a nomad's life. She goes for a few months,
Speaker 3: works on a show as a writer's assistant. Sometimes she
Speaker 3: gets to write as well, and then she comes back.
Speaker 3: Our son is a producer. He works with Dennis, and
Speaker 3: he found it and made it happen, and it's going
Speaker 3: to be shooting in Ireland this fall, but it's set
Speaker 3: in the Netherlands.
Speaker 1: Oh, collaboration. So you're on a book to right now
Speaker 1: with I've tried being nice. Yes, Where are you going
Speaker 1: on this tour?
Speaker 2: I mostly just the New England area. You know since COVID.
Speaker 3: What happened during COVID, A lot of book events became
Speaker 3: virtual and they publishers realized, why are we spending all
Speaker 3: this money? Now It's different for Jodpico and Stephen King.
Speaker 3: They still do like multi city tours. But you know,
Speaker 3: if you are kind of you know, it's okay selling author,
Speaker 3: it's you know, you can do these virtual events, which
Speaker 3: I do, but I also go to you know, I
Speaker 3: don't like to fly that one, so places where I
Speaker 3: can drive. I've been in Cambridge, I've been here. I'm
Speaker 3: going back to Boston and going Thursday, I'll be in Portsmouth,
Speaker 3: New Hampshire at the Music Hall. They do big events there. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so a lot of New England things. I will be
Speaker 3: at RJ. Julia here in Connecticut at Stanford Library. Of
Speaker 3: places I can get too easily and otherwise I do
Speaker 3: kind of virtual events and the easiest was coming right
Speaker 3: across the street to Martha Stewart to do your podcast.
Speaker 3: I thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: So great for you to be here, and I can't
Speaker 1: wait for your next book. Of course, on your Instagram
Speaker 1: page at Ann Leary One Word, you share a lot
Speaker 1: of videos of your dogs doing tricks and you can
Speaker 1: get to know Ann Leary very nicely with her love
Speaker 1: of animals right there on Ann Leary, thank you well,
Speaker 1: thank you for coming by, and thank you, and I
Speaker 1: can't wait to talk more about writing. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: write an autobiography.
Speaker 2: I know that I cannot wait, though this is hard.
Speaker 1: I'm not because I'd like to write, but I'm not
Speaker 1: a novelist and I don't profess to be a writer.
Speaker 1: But I know it's going to be a long slog
Speaker 1: to do a book like that, but I'm looking forward
Speaker 1: to it. Yes, I have friends like Anne Leary that
Speaker 1: I can sort of.
Speaker 2: I write it as you're writing it to your best friend.
Speaker 1: I'm reading your very very good piece.
Speaker 3: Yes, write it, you know, like you're writing it to
Speaker 3: Charlotte Beers or Memory Lewis.
Speaker 2: Your friends. I love you. Guys are a few years
Speaker 2: older than me.
Speaker 3: I've gotten to know a couple of Martha's friends, and
Speaker 3: I am watching you guys because I want to be
Speaker 3: moving into the next part of my life and being
Speaker 3: able to.
Speaker 2: I can't keep up with you now.
Speaker 1: But we're all curious. Keep up the curiosity, that's right,
Speaker 1: and that's what I think is the best thing about
Speaker 1: being a writer is your curiosity.
Speaker 2: I think that's something a lot of people don't know
Speaker 2: about you. You are authentically very curious, and that's what
Speaker 2: makes anyone and.
Speaker 1: I think that will help us a lot with my
Speaker 1: writing as I embark on this next phase. But and Larry,
Speaker 1: thank you and best of luck with this book as
Speaker 1: it and you don't need it, but good luck.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Martha, and come visit against so
Speaker 2: I would love to