0:00

Family Secrets is a production of I Heart

0:02

Radio. I'm

0:12

Danny Shapiro and this is a special bonus

0:14

episode of Family Secrets. This

0:16

summer, the wonderful Nora mcinnerney,

0:19

host of the podcast Terrible

0:22

Thanks For Asking, joined me for

0:24

a live taping of Family Secrets

0:26

at Rizzoli Bookstore in New York City.

0:29

This is part two of our conversation.

0:38

So, so we're going to open it up to questions, and

0:40

there's a mic up here. Um,

0:42

so anybody who has a question should come up

0:45

and kind of I know, it's a little

0:47

My favorite part of any event is just the silence

0:49

and then the mercy when someone stands up

0:52

and then you hope she's asking a question, but maybe she just wants

0:54

a sparkling water. Now she's gonna ask

0:56

a question. What angel Um.

1:00

I'm a bit more familiar with Danny

1:03

life now there from There was Your Life, nors

1:05

m very ser loss Um.

1:10

I was curious a few years

1:12

ago. I think there was a popular book Calum

1:14

Breath Becomes singer Um.

1:17

I guess it's kind of written from the other perspective

1:20

where the doctor was very sick.

1:22

I think he may also had a

1:24

bring tumor of some sort. And what

1:26

I'm wondering whether you read that book and

1:29

how does it make you feel, because

1:31

it is kind of from the opposite side. Um,

1:34

When Breath, When Breath becomes There

1:36

is by Paul Colin Eathi and or Calanthi

1:39

and uh. He was He

1:41

was a physician, and I think

1:43

he had lung cancer and very he had all the cancers

1:45

and he wrote

1:48

a beautiful memoir and his

1:50

wife finished it, Lucy finished

1:52

it for him. And I could not read it for the

1:54

longest time. And I got maybe a hundred

1:56

of them gifted to me, people You're gonna

1:59

love this book, and I was like, no, I won't.

2:02

I'll show you, No, I won't. I

2:04

did read it um eventually,

2:07

and it was oddly comforting.

2:10

It was oddly comforting. Aaron

2:13

had a very different

2:15

personality than Paul. Aaron was just but he was also

2:18

so buoyant. Aaron was just so

2:20

happy and alive.

2:23

And he always told me like, this is okay.

2:25

It's okay. Even when I was bawling, like no,

2:28

it's not you have a brain cancer. He was

2:30

like, it's okay, it's okay.

2:32

And Paul's book

2:36

made me feel like maybe it really was and

2:39

in it, he writes this beautiful letter to

2:41

his daughter, and I remember being jealous

2:44

when I read that, because I had asked Aaron, do you want to write

2:46

a letter to our son or maybe a couple

2:48

of letters, like maybe you write one for his like sweet sixteen.

2:51

I don't know if boys even have one. Also, I didn't

2:53

have one. I grew up in the Midwest. I was like, do I get a car?

2:55

My dad was like, are you on drugs? Like

2:58

what? I was like, well, I've been watching a lot of commercials. Um.

3:02

But he writes this beautiful letter to his daughter,

3:04

and I remember asking Aaron about

3:06

that and he was like what No, he

3:08

was so uncomfortable, like what am I gonna write? Like, Hi,

3:11

son, Well I'm dead? And

3:14

so he didn't. He didn't do that. But I

3:16

do think of my first

3:19

book as as that

3:21

for Ralph,

3:23

because I couldn't do that. But when Breath Becomes airs

3:26

as a very incredible book. It was very comforting

3:28

for me, but it was very resistant to reading

3:30

it. And whenever somebody is around somebody who's

3:32

grieving and they're like what should I do? What

3:34

should I do? I'm like, I mean, you can give him

3:36

a book Um, they

3:39

might not read it, but it is a really nice

3:41

gesture. So if you're wondering what to get

3:43

the grieving person who has everything, not

3:45

a hot dish, they've got enough of

3:47

those. Give him a book or a plant. Not

3:51

not your question, but you know it asked another

3:53

question. I

3:56

just interviewed a guest for season

3:58

two, The Family Secrets. It's launching

4:01

in late August, and

4:03

it's um, someone who's whose wife

4:06

recently passed away, and the

4:08

secret involves that they chose not to tell their

4:10

their their children that she was dying, and

4:13

they're quite grown children. But

4:15

she talked about the way that she didn't

4:18

want the casseroles, like she just

4:21

did not want that. She wanted

4:23

to be the bringer of the casseroles, not the

4:26

receiver of the casseroles. And um,

4:28

it's funny the way I mean funny, but the way

4:31

that casseroles and hot dishes have become

4:33

like the symbol of all

4:36

illness and what you

4:38

know, people want to do something right, they want to they

4:40

want to cook, they want to do they

4:42

want to do something, and they don't know what to do. Yeah,

4:45

I mean, food is helpful, but at

4:47

the time I was I was not eating

4:49

casserole. I was eating like a five pound

4:51

bag of sour Patch kids, and that's hard

4:53

to like. It's hard to express someone that can we

4:56

bring something? I'm like, yeah, you can bring like, um,

4:58

I don't like a twelve pack of coke would

5:00

be nice. Uh, bag

5:03

of taco bell. Actually someone did deliver taco

5:05

bell. That was a lovely gift. So.

5:09

I just recently discovered both your podcasts

5:11

and I love them both. And I am in complete agreement

5:13

with Nora that you really should if

5:15

you had like a podcast where you just spoke quietly,

5:18

I'd probably could fall asleep to it. You have an amazing SMR

5:22

obviously, I was actually gonna stay in the shapiro a

5:24

SMR YouTube channel check it out later.

5:26

I would, yes, for people don't know what SMR

5:28

is. It just people talking really quietly and tapping

5:30

and tapping their nails, and you could just be like I'm

5:33

Danny Shapira and I'm an open a plastic

5:36

selfing bag. Yeah

5:39

I would. I would download it. I'm already subscribed

5:41

to exactly UM.

5:43

So I love both of your podcasts. I Uh.

5:46

There are certain ones though, where I see um,

5:49

I see the description before and I'm like, I don't know if

5:51

I can listen to it quite yet, because they can be pretty

5:54

intense. Was there one

5:56

of your podcasts, one of your episodes that was the

5:59

hardest, really the most difficult for you to do?

6:02

I would I would say in the first season it

6:04

was the episode UM that's

6:06

called Band of Men. Um. I

6:09

had been contacted a number of years earlier

6:11

by Um, a man who had gone

6:14

to the same high school as me. UM,

6:16

and I didn't know him. He was a couple of years younger than

6:18

than I was, so we hadn't been in each other's

6:20

social circles. But it

6:23

had turned out that he was one of a

6:25

really significant number of boys who was

6:28

sexually abused by a very charismatic

6:31

social studies teacher slash boy

6:33

Scouts leader slash you know,

6:35

wilderness counselor in the

6:37

at the camp all the boys went to. He was just a complete

6:40

groomer of of

6:42

boys of a very young age, sort

6:44

of ages ten to twelve. And he had

6:46

come to me years earlier because

6:49

he knew that I was a writer and that I knew

6:51

a lot of writers in journalists and maybe I could help him

6:53

get the story out. And I had tried.

6:55

I spoke with a friend of mine at sixty minutes.

6:58

I really wanted to help these

7:00

guys be able to tell their story. The

7:02

school was behaving badly. It

7:05

was just a very upsetting, infuriating story,

7:07

and I wasn't able to because the school was like a nice

7:10

private school in New Jersey. But it wasn't St. Paul's,

7:12

you know, it wasn't horas Man. There had already been

7:14

these stories. There was like enough boy

7:16

abuse stories out there apparently, So

7:19

when I was launching Family Secrets,

7:22

I approached him and I said, I think I do have

7:24

a way of getting your story out, um.

7:26

But it was an extremely

7:29

emotional interview. That

7:31

was one of the ones that I did in my son's

7:33

old playroom with the with the

7:36

stuff hippopotamus and the and there was

7:38

something about seeing it's actually in my introduction

7:40

to that episode, being in this boy's

7:43

playroom, you know, as

7:45

his mom and thinking about this

7:48

this long ago boy who had just been

7:50

through this horrific, horrific I mean,

7:52

I think I think we spent two and a half hours

7:54

on that particular conversation

7:57

interview, you know, to ultimately kind of

7:59

carve of it the story that needed

8:01

to be told, but it was. And then the more

8:03

that I knew about it, the more that I realized how

8:05

many of those boys I had known, you

8:08

know, as as a kid. So I had a very it was personal.

8:11

The episode that I

8:13

was thinking of was actually very, very similar.

8:15

I interviewed this woman named Rachel

8:18

and she was a victim

8:20

of Larry Nasser's and she didn't even

8:22

know it, like she was one of the she

8:24

was one of the girls who had defended him,

8:26

essentially, and was like, what are you talking about?

8:29

And that was also a two and a half

8:31

hour conversation, and then it was several hours

8:33

of me transcribing and like

8:35

listening to it over and over while

8:38

I was on winter break

8:40

with my kids, and

8:42

and then also just looking around

8:45

me at just all of the ways that

8:48

that that girls are discredited

8:50

and that they're sort of hyper

8:52

sexualized in ways that you don't even

8:56

necessarily think about.

8:59

Um, yeah, that was That was a really great winter

9:01

break. I think I sat in a room and cried for

9:03

like half a day, and the kids were

9:05

like, is she okay? My husband was like, oh, she's

9:07

great, Yeah,

9:09

she'll be out. And then um,

9:12

there's an episode in the first season called Semperify,

9:15

and it's about It

9:19

started with with

9:21

my dad. My dad was a

9:24

marine in Vietnam

9:26

and he had left

9:28

a comment on like

9:31

the Virtual Vietnam. While you can leave a

9:33

you can leave a comment on the memorial for somebody.

9:36

And I was trying to piece together

9:39

the stories that my dad had told me about

9:41

his time in Vietnam. There were not many,

9:43

but for some reason he told them to me. My brothers

9:45

were like, well, I didn't, so I had nobody to like compare them

9:47

too. And I went to

9:50

the Marine Corps reunion

9:53

that my dad had never gone to. I

9:55

got in touch with all these guys that my dad was

9:57

looking for. They were looking for him, but I mean

10:01

it was nine. They all spelled each

10:03

other's names wrong, by the way, like on

10:05

the back of on the back of the three photos they

10:07

had. And so I found these guys

10:09

and I went to this reunion and I

10:12

figured out the story that I was thinking

10:14

about. And also I just spent hours

10:17

talking to these men that everybody had told

10:19

me would not talk to me. And they sat

10:21

in a hotel room

10:24

with me and with my producer Hans holding his arms

10:26

up like this with a with a mic he

10:28

sat there for five hours silently while

10:31

I just wept, and they

10:33

wept, not even necessarily about

10:35

the story that I was there for. And

10:38

I just felt like this immense sense

10:41

of everything that my dad had gone through and everything

10:44

that he had he had carried and never told

10:46

us about. And I just felt really

10:49

heavy and wrung

10:51

out. And I was also secretly pregnant

10:54

and um, and I just remember

10:57

going back to my hotel and helped my hotel

10:59

room night after night. We're there for four days,

11:02

and just crying so hard that my head hurts, and

11:05

putting that episode together, crying

11:08

in the studio with Hans and

11:10

and and crying as we got

11:12

a letter from the man who's at the center of the

11:14

story of boy who's at the center of the story, the boy

11:17

who died in this worthless

11:19

way, and all of these men looking

11:22

at me and telling me that they would go back because

11:24

you have to tell yourself it was worth it. You

11:26

have to. And I got a letter from his family afterwards,

11:29

after the episode came out that said thank

11:31

you, and I will go home and ball about

11:34

that tonight. To put that episode is just very um.

11:39

That's probably the most important one to me. And also the

11:41

hardest to make. Yeah, we're

11:44

going to pause for a moment. Hey,

11:50

it's really cool to see you guys in person. Um

11:53

So, kind of on the note of what you were just talking about, you

11:55

both have children, Can you talk about

11:58

how your

12:00

work and your family co exist? More

12:02

like how how do you make those

12:04

episodes? And then turned

12:07

back to your kid? Oh there, you know

12:09

husband? Remember should

12:12

we have your son? Answered this one? Yeah, hey,

12:14

Jacob, where are you? My son's here somewhere.

12:17

Um, you can stay there,

12:19

It's okay. So so my my

12:21

my kid is now you know, a young man.

12:24

Um So it feels a little bit different

12:26

now. But throughout my writing

12:28

life, much

12:31

of which coincided with his childhood, I

12:34

had to find a way to go

12:36

to these places that were

12:39

scary, dark, painful, and

12:43

not have them enveloped me. So

12:46

I found myself almost visualizing

12:49

it as a place

12:51

inside of me where I could go that

12:54

was small, and that when I would go there,

12:56

it would expand and it would become the whole world. And

12:58

then I could be in that world and swim

13:00

around in that world and do whatever I needed to do in that

13:02

world. Um. But then when

13:04

I needed to leave that world, I

13:06

could almost like a deep sea diver, like just

13:09

push up from it and it would contract

13:11

again and it would be there waiting for me. And

13:13

it wasn't like it wasn't something that I

13:16

was feeling all the time. But it was

13:18

kind of contained. It didn't take

13:20

me over, um, and

13:23

you know, so I could be you

13:27

know, me as a mom and make lunch

13:29

and put dinner on the table, and help

13:32

with homework and and be in. I

13:34

very acutely did not want to miss

13:38

my family's

13:40

life as a young family. I had

13:42

this feeling I'd seen it too many times

13:45

of just and and all the truisms

13:47

that people say it goes by so fast. I mean it doesn't.

13:49

It doesn't you know that the days

13:52

are long and the years are short. Um. But

13:54

I didn't. I didn't want to miss it. I didn't want to look back.

13:56

I was driven by not wanting to look back

13:58

and thinking, you know, I just I

14:01

missed it. I was too focused on, you

14:04

know, my my work, because my work is incredibly important

14:06

to me and I had big, um creative

14:08

ambitions for it. But I also had

14:11

this opportunity

14:13

to have this beautiful

14:16

family life that I wanted to have, So I

14:18

I was always kind of like even an example

14:21

would be I realized early on, uh,

14:24

I was always a morning writer, and

14:27

if I didn't get to work first thing in the morning, if I

14:29

didn't roll out of bed and get to work, then the work

14:31

wouldn't happen. But now I had a

14:33

kid, so there was something definitely in the way

14:35

between rolling and bed and getting to work. There was all

14:37

sorts of other things that had to happen to have his day

14:40

get started. And and I

14:42

didn't want to just zone out on it and be like

14:44

the sort of did I get up? Did I

14:46

you know, like what has happened? Um?

14:49

And so I learned to like

14:52

find a pause button, like to be able

14:54

to actually be like, all right, I'm

14:56

I'm going to be able to get up and be

14:58

present and you know, make

15:01

the eggs and pack the lunch box and

15:03

drive to school and come back and then

15:06

and then I can stop

15:08

the pause button and start and

15:10

start the day again. Um. Which

15:13

was something that I learned how to do out of necessity.

15:15

Wasn't something that I knew how to do, but I but

15:17

I learned how to do it. And I also became

15:20

much more resourceful

15:22

in terms of um my

15:25

time, Like, if I had an hour, I

15:27

used the hour. If I had two hours, I used Like.

15:29

The worst thing for me was feeling like, Wow,

15:31

I had that time, and I just frittered it away

15:34

because I got in my own way and

15:36

my resistance and my frustration

15:39

got the better of me. And then and then

15:41

I learned that if I did that, i'd really like be so

15:43

mad at myself at the end of the day that I

15:45

wouldn't want to be me. So I learned how

15:47

to kind of do end runs

15:50

around that kind of experience. This

15:53

event was supposed to be on Wednesday night,

15:55

and then I realized that um kindergarten

15:58

graduation is Wednesday, and

16:00

I don't let you know these things. They don't let you know.

16:03

I'm like, what it feels

16:05

like this could have gotten on the calendar a little sooner.

16:07

Also, do I read all the emails? No, okay,

16:09

I don't. We get a lot of them. Um, and

16:12

Danny was like, we'll figure it out. So

16:14

I know that I know that you were that kind of mom, because

16:17

you were awesome about that. Well. I remember

16:19

there's a annual writer's

16:21

conference called a w P and and it

16:24

was I think some year when

16:26

my son was little. It was in maybe

16:28

Washington, d C. And I was supposed to be on a panel about

16:31

motherhood and writing. And on the morning

16:33

that I was supposed to head to d C from my panel on motherhood

16:35

and writing, there was a blizzard in Connecticut and

16:38

so snow day was called and

16:41

I couldn't go to the panel on motherhood

16:43

and writing, which was an object lesson

16:46

in motherhood and writing. Yeah, it

16:48

really is. Um I

16:51

I've not always been that intentional

16:53

and I I mean I went to

16:55

work two days after I had a baby. Part

16:59

of it that was EP D and PP and part

17:01

of it was just like, oh my gosh, are they gonna not, you

17:03

know, support this if I don't like, get right back

17:05

to work. And also part of it

17:07

was I just I felt so attached

17:10

to the thing that I was making I didn't feel like

17:12

I could stop. And we have

17:14

a two year old, a six year old,

17:16

a twelve year old, and a seventeen year old. That's a

17:18

wide range of humanity.

17:21

And because the older kids are newer to

17:23

me, I really don't want to miss anything

17:25

about their lives. I want to be there for middle school,

17:28

I want to be there for for high school stuff.

17:30

Also it's just frankly more interesting than preschool

17:32

stuff. I got to be honest,

17:35

I'm like, wow, so what's happening?

17:37

Like, tell me everything?

17:39

Like Also, seventh graders feel

17:42

like very superior to sixth graders in a

17:44

way that's fascinating to me. I'm

17:46

like, remember that was you last year? And she's like was

17:48

it? Like it was? Um

17:51

so at first. And Also I'm self employed.

17:53

Everything that I do is is basically on a freelance

17:56

basis, and that means your day could end never

17:59

and my days were ever ending and I

18:01

would open my laptop at ten and

18:04

the kids noticed, and my husband definitely

18:06

noticed, and that felt terrible. And

18:08

now I'm just very like I have the

18:11

most strict routine out of anybody.

18:14

I go to bed so early, I wake up early,

18:16

I go to the gym with my biggest kid. Then

18:18

I write for two hours. You might be wondering

18:20

where the kids. My husband's taking care of them, Okay,

18:23

he's where a man belongs in the kitchen, making

18:26

breakfast for the kids, getting him ready for

18:28

school. And then my

18:30

day ends at three, so I can be there,

18:33

um too, when I remember to pick them

18:35

up, I

18:38

can be there, am I always know, but

18:40

I took I took like email off my phone.

18:43

I don't. I don't do

18:45

this as much because they are

18:47

so interesting and also

18:49

if it's that urgent, maybe it's um

18:52

like a better be life or death at

18:54

this point, which I love.

18:56

Like younger people, all the youths

18:59

who are like in their twenties, they just won't work

19:01

like that. They just will not. They're

19:04

like, oh no, I don't I'm not going to check my email

19:06

at night, Like whoa, look at those boundaries. It's

19:08

bonkers. But when I was four,

19:10

I was like, I will do whatever you want. You want me

19:12

to come to your house and feed your hamster

19:15

for no money, boss, I'm there. True

19:18

story. It's like oh yeah, no, I mean it's a two

19:20

hour train ride, but yeah, I'll do it. I'll do it.

19:23

And like kids now in their

19:25

twenties, like even early thirties, they're like, oh

19:27

no, I don't do that. No, I'm sorry.

19:29

I go to yoga that night. It's amazing.

19:31

It's amazing. Be like these

19:34

gen zers there, they really they

19:36

got to figure it out. It's because their their

19:38

parents sent them to therapy. So

19:41

uh, I was just wondering

19:44

what podcasts you guys listened to I

19:47

listened to, Okay, my favorite podcast

19:50

is Who Weekly because it is

19:53

pop culture candy for me. It's everything

19:55

you need to know about the celebrities you don't

19:57

so, you know, you always pick up like an US weekly and you're like,

20:00

who what is this about? And

20:02

it's two writers who I think

20:04

used to work for New York Magazine, Lindsay Weber

20:07

Bobby Finger. They're so funny and

20:09

they just it's it's basically

20:11

an analysis of the celebrity

20:14

industrial complex, where like everybody is famous

20:16

now, um, and you can't figure out

20:18

why. And it's not mean, but

20:21

it's very, very, very funny, and

20:23

it comes out on Tuesdays and Fridays. And I also

20:25

listened to You Call Your Girlfriend. Those are the two

20:27

that I listened to every episode

20:29

every week. And also Forever

20:31

thirty five podcast about the things

20:34

we do to take care of ourselves. And

20:36

I listen to I

20:39

Just, I Just We're back on the jet ski

20:41

Guys. I'm literally flipping

20:43

through the on my phone. I

20:47

really I try to listen to podcasts

20:49

that I would never make, if that makes

20:51

sense, because they're just

20:53

so they're so different from what I do. They like, they just

20:56

sit down and talk and

20:58

just like, I don't know if you're this way, But if I'm writing a memoir,

21:00

I can't read any memoirs. I really can't.

21:03

And if I'm uh writing

21:05

a novel, of which I've I've done one in

21:08

progress, Well that's not a good example because

21:10

I guess all I read is novels right now. But if

21:12

I'm in the middle of creating podcasts

21:15

a podcast, I can't listen to podcasts that are similar

21:17

to mine. But when I'm not, then

21:20

I listened to sad narrative

21:22

podcasts. Yeah, I would say

21:24

that's true for me too. I actually stopped listening

21:26

to Terrible Things for Asking while I was making Season one

21:28

of Family Secrets because what is that dip in my DNA

21:32

alright down by one? Because

21:34

it felt like, um,

21:37

you know, in in writing,

21:39

there's you know, we talk a lot about voice, and

21:42

I stay away from

21:45

work that feels that it could

21:47

sort of seep into my voice in some way.

21:50

Um, And that's usually work that has some

21:52

kind of overlap or similarity. One

21:54

podcast I've consistently listened to is Heavyweight.

21:58

Um. Yes, jeez, Louise, just

22:01

it's really really good storytelling. Um.

22:03

See some nodding heads. Yeah, I can

22:05

tell you also the ones that I tend to kind of shy

22:08

away from our like, you

22:11

know, two girls sitting around talking,

22:14

you know, like just the

22:17

the kind of loose banter

22:20

that doesn't really feel like it's about anything.

22:22

I'm not naming names, but I just there's just a feeling

22:25

of like just overhearing something

22:27

that's happening at the next table in the restaurant

22:29

when you're bored and you're waiting for your dinner companion, and

22:32

just it's just people talking. And I think

22:34

it's because you and I both spend so

22:36

much time creating something that feels

22:38

that's very that's very produced, that

22:41

I tend to gravitate more towards those.

22:43

But I also have been really

22:45

enjoying the limited series, you

22:48

know, the I loved um the

22:51

the dropout, you know, as did a lot of people.

22:54

It was just just

22:56

just I just wanted to well,

23:00

that was so completely freaky.

23:02

I mean, not really a spoiler alert if any

23:04

of you haven't listened to it, but her her

23:07

voice, um, Elizabeth's Holmes.

23:10

Yeah, are you talking about my voice? Question

23:13

about my voice? Is it fake? Your voice

23:15

was made up? Voice? Is made up and it

23:17

sounds it sounds like this, and

23:19

it's like, how do you not know that she was doing a voice

23:22

disguise? It sounds like when your brother's

23:24

voice is not changed and he tries to answer the phone

23:27

Hello, but you're like really

23:30

hearing the pathology like in action.

23:32

And I preferred listening to it as a podcast

23:34

then watching UM, the documentary

23:37

about I guess was better. That's why. And

23:41

as sort of a follow up to that, what kind of

23:43

books do you like to read while you're actually writing?

23:45

And it can be either when you're writing memoirs

23:48

or when you're writing fiction or non fiction. I

23:50

have so many piles of different books

23:53

for different um for

23:55

different reasons. I mean like I'm

23:57

entering a period of time right now where

23:59

I feel like I can read for pleasure UM in

24:01

a way that I haven't been able to do in a while, Like there's

24:03

just a break in my UM.

24:06

Because when you're a writer and you're on tour, as I have been

24:08

since January, I will often be reading

24:10

the books of people that I'm doing events with, and

24:12

sometimes they're really pleasurable, but they're not necessarily

24:14

the books that I would pick up and say this is what I

24:16

want to read next. I

24:19

um just started a beautiful novel, UM first

24:21

novel debut called UM Disappearing Country

24:23

by Julia phillips Um.

24:25

That's been getting really gorgeous reviews. I

24:28

dip into, Oh, I'm reading Sally Rooney's

24:31

Normal People so good. It's just so

24:33

good. Um. I

24:35

love great

24:38

writing, and I can't

24:40

read for story if the writing

24:42

isn't beautiful. And I can forgive

24:45

a lot when it comes to story

24:47

if the writing is beautiful and I just fall

24:50

into it and I just want to be there. I want to kind of

24:52

be in in those sentences.

24:54

Um, what else

24:57

I I lose? They go like titles

25:00

go right over my head. If I'm writing memoir, then

25:02

I mainly just want to read old books

25:04

that I've already read. So

25:07

The Loved One, Evelyn Wis, all these all

25:09

these books that like you read when you were seventeen

25:12

or sixteen, and you're like, I bet that was

25:14

a really good book and I was just reading it to get to the you

25:17

know, ap English final. Um.

25:20

And if I'm writing the

25:23

podcast and I'm just reading novels

25:26

that's all I've been reading lately, I

25:28

can forgive basically anything like,

25:30

I'm just I'm just reading just to like have fun

25:33

and be alone. And I read every single day

25:35

and I read normal People and it made me really

25:37

sad. I was like, wow, this is about how much I hated

25:40

myself in my twenties. Uh.

25:43

And I just read Ghosted, which was

25:45

very absorbing. Absorbing. It's

25:47

a new word, the

25:50

only here here. Um,

25:53

it's a really it's a good story. It's

25:56

a really good story. And I'm reading Red

25:58

White and Royal Blue. Ah, I novel about

26:01

the that the first

26:03

son falling in love with

26:06

the Prince of England. What

26:09

would happen? We'll find out

26:12

do they hate each other? It's like a classic rom

26:14

com, only with uh, gay

26:17

teenage boys. It's wonderful. Well,

26:20

you know you're you're reminding me too, I am. So.

26:23

I've been producing season two of Family Secrets,

26:25

and and probably we should rename

26:27

Season two of Family Secrets Writers with Family Secrets,

26:30

because eight out of ten of my guests are writers.

26:32

Um and um, so I've

26:34

been I've been reading their books in preparation

26:37

and uh, well, one of them,

26:39

I was familiar with his very

26:42

familiar with his work, and um just

26:44

thought he would have a lot to say about shame

26:46

and secrecy, shame being the thing that's

26:48

always kind of thrumming underneath anything

26:50

that's secret, and that's u. K. S. A. Lehman. His

26:53

memoir Heavy, So he's one of the

26:55

guests and is a beautiful book that he's

26:57

a memoir, but he addresses it to his mother, so

27:00

it's in the in the in the second person, in the

27:02

you voice. There's also a

27:04

wonderful memoir that just came out recently,

27:07

and she's also going to be a guest on season two. Her

27:09

name is Brigette M. Davis

27:11

and the books called the World according

27:13

to Fannie Davis. Her mother

27:15

Fannie Davis. Brigette was raised in Detroit

27:18

in the sixties and seventies and her mother was a

27:20

numbers runner and that's how she supported

27:22

her family. And it's just this fantastic

27:25

story of like a family keeping the mother's

27:27

secrets and um. So

27:29

that like I have a lot of books that have just there's like

27:31

scribbled in the margins and everywhere

27:33

with I was actually going to be on a panel

27:35

with Brigette, and so I was reading her book in preparation

27:38

for being on the panel. And as soon as I started reading

27:40

her book. I was like, oh, and

27:42

she was amazing. Hi. I

27:44

want to thank you guys so much. Um. So,

27:46

I am donor conceived. I found out via

27:48

DNA testing little over a year and a half ago.

27:51

Um And I also um in my career,

27:53

I worked in Alzheimer's care and hospice.

27:56

I actually had a client who was about thirty

27:58

five with young children died

28:00

of a brain cancer. UM.

28:03

So, kind of my question is is when I found

28:05

out I was donor conceived, there were other big

28:07

stresses going on in my life. There were some family

28:09

mental breakdowns, there were marriage issues.

28:12

I had just had a baby, I had a toddler. Um.

28:14

You know, so there was a lot going

28:17

on, a lot um and

28:19

it's very difficult for people to

28:21

understand like intense trauma.

28:24

Um And so my question for both

28:27

of you having been through

28:29

these kind of unimaginable thing after saying

28:31

after saying within a short period of time where

28:33

it's people don't understand

28:35

it, or people are just kind of tired of it, or people

28:38

just think it's negative when it's really like processing,

28:41

what do you see as the state of

28:44

kind of empathy in our

28:46

society? Like, what do you see as

28:49

maybe kind of like your role in

28:52

that um and kind of

28:54

educating people, because that's something I like to write about

28:56

in my kind of donor conception advocacy.

28:58

A lot is you know, kind of trauma

29:00

recovery and how we kind of process

29:02

these things and kind of normal and how human it

29:05

is. So I'm wondering what your perspectives are

29:07

having been through those things and also being public

29:09

figures who have podcasts and books,

29:11

like what you see from people in your personal

29:13

life and also what you see from from talking

29:15

with people in the general public about those things.

29:19

Those are great. Those are really great questions

29:21

and um ones that I

29:23

feel like I've been grappling with really intensely

29:25

in the last and the last just in the last few years.

29:28

I Mean you'd think I would say I've been grappling

29:30

with them all my life as a writer, but it really

29:32

feels much more intense

29:34

in the last few years. And one of

29:36

the things about writing Inheritance,

29:39

which was something that I knew that I had to do almost

29:41

instantly. I mean, I made

29:44

this discovery and I started thinking about

29:46

how I was going to process it in language,

29:49

because that's how I process everything,

29:51

and I need to be able to find the shape

29:53

and the language for it or else I'm not going to understand

29:56

it um And but

29:58

I also knew that it was an

30:00

experience that wasn't

30:03

going to be a slam dunk

30:06

in terms of people's

30:08

empathic response, because

30:11

it was something out side

30:14

of the realm of what

30:16

what people have thought about. So

30:19

I had written other books in which you know, my son was

30:21

sick as a baby, Well, we understand that, you

30:23

know, anybody's going to have some empathy for that.

30:26

My my dad died in a car accident. We

30:28

understand that we don't have to have been through those

30:31

experiences, but we think, like, wow, I know, I know,

30:33

I can imagine how I would feel if I had a childhoo

30:35

was sick, or I can imagine how I would feel if I lost

30:37

a parent in that way. But try out,

30:40

I'm fifty four years old, and I'd take a DNA

30:42

test and I discovered that the dad who raised me wasn't

30:44

my dad, and that actually I was conceived by a sperm

30:47

donor. Is like, what what

30:49

would that be? And and you know, and then there are people

30:51

like it's one of the reasons why I don't

30:53

read, like read or comments on things, because there's

30:55

like like a version of wow,

30:58

wow, wow, Like what is a big

31:00

deal? I mean, so what, She's had

31:03

a great life, She's here, isn't she She should

31:05

be pleased at this terrific

31:07

you know, turn of events, and and you know

31:09

who cares Like it's like get

31:11

over it. It's like one or under the bridge.

31:14

And I knew that in the writing

31:16

of it that I had to actually

31:21

aim for and think about

31:23

what was universal about my experience,

31:25

which is not something I've ever had to do as a

31:27

writer. It's something that I would counsel people against

31:30

doing because it makes you sort of self conscious, like what's

31:32

universal about my experience? But I had

31:34

to and I and I so I found myself

31:36

thinking what am I learning about identity?

31:39

What am I learning about what makes a

31:41

father a father? What am I learning about nature

31:43

and nurture? That I can find

31:45

a way to impart so that I can connect

31:48

with the reader, um and

31:51

and like push

31:53

the reader toward, provoke the

31:55

reader toward a kind of understanding

31:58

of Oh I see wow,

32:00

that would be really complicated to

32:03

make sense, really provoking

32:05

empathy, which is what I felt like I had

32:07

to be doing in this case.

32:10

Um, everything

32:13

that we do is aimed

32:16

around empathy versus pity.

32:18

It's a huge distinction for the show. It's

32:20

a huge distinction for uh,

32:22

what we do with Still Kicking, what

32:24

we do with the Hot Young Widows Club, which is a real

32:27

group that I have, which is that nobody

32:30

needs you to feel bad for them,

32:32

but there are plenty

32:34

of ways to do that, and pity is

32:36

like the cheapest emotion we have. That's why we're

32:38

so generous with it. We're just like, you can have some you

32:41

can I can feel bad for literally anyone.

32:43

I'm so good at it. But empathy

32:45

does require imagination, and most

32:47

people really are not that imaginative. It takes

32:50

a lot of energy to be empathetic.

32:53

So the stories that we look

32:57

at on our show are really

32:59

meant to stretch that I really

33:01

meant to. We listen to it as we're writing

33:04

it, and we listen to it as

33:06

as an unempathetic person, and

33:09

when we do group listens for the draft episodes,

33:11

we say like, well, okay,

33:14

so why wouldn't

33:16

this be a thing. And some of the narration is

33:19

meant to cut those reflexes

33:21

off from the listener and

33:23

to say, like, I know that you might be thinking

33:26

this, but think about it

33:28

this way, because I do want

33:30

to create episodes that that can be

33:32

helpful for other people, and

33:35

that can help other people help the people around

33:37

them stretched so that you who

33:39

feel very, very beleaguered

33:42

by trying to bring everyone in your

33:44

life along with you and this thing that they think

33:46

is too sad, have something to show

33:48

that's like, look, it's not just me, Look

33:51

this is this is this is something that a lot of people

33:53

feel. So listen to this. Think of

33:55

it this way. So we've had

33:57

a lot of I mean, it's easy to feel You can feel

34:00

ad for somebody who as a has a has

34:02

a dead baby. You can feel bad for somebody who

34:04

has a has a dead husband. But

34:06

can you feel for someone who

34:08

has a more complicated story, Because

34:11

the thing is all of those stories are

34:13

always more complicated. But

34:16

it's it's hard for you, like

34:18

on the personal level, Like it

34:21

is hard when people don't get it.

34:23

And what I would say to you and to anybody

34:25

here, a lot of people in your life

34:27

just won't. And so if you can

34:29

take that off your plate. You are not here

34:32

to make everybody understand absolutely

34:34

everything that you feel. It's

34:37

impossible to do. That is

34:39

going to free up a lot of anguish for you.

34:42

Yeah, it strikes me to listening to you that pity

34:46

is something that separates,

34:48

right Like, if I am

34:51

pitying you, it means that I'm on

34:53

one side of this divide and you're

34:55

on the other side. Um, if I'm

34:57

pitying, it means you're pitiable and I'm

34:59

not. And empathy

35:02

has to do us. We are all in this together.

35:04

This could be you, this could

35:06

be me, this could be

35:08

any one of us at any given moment, and

35:11

we are all always,

35:13

you know, always in that place.

35:16

Um. And I think empathy comes

35:18

from that understanding, even when it's and

35:20

and and know there will be failures of empathy constantly.

35:23

But when you're describing what you do

35:25

in the scripts and in the voiceover in

35:27

your show, is precisely what I

35:29

was talking about earlier when I when

35:31

I described trying to hold

35:34

a story, it's it's you

35:36

know, it's your job, and it's my job as

35:38

a host of a show like this to say, wait

35:40

a minute, Um, We're gonna turn

35:42

this a little bit here. I'm gonna get inside of your head,

35:45

listener, and I know what you're thinking,

35:47

but here's here's a pivot.

35:49

Here's another way of looking at it, And that's

35:51

that's that's the holding I think of this

35:54

kind of work, and I

35:56

think a lack of empathy comes from

35:58

this need to compare your

36:00

story against somebody else's, which

36:02

is a really sort

36:05

of reflexive thing that people

36:07

do. Right, Like, well, I

36:09

mean, at least the dad you

36:11

had was pretty good, right, so when we at

36:13

least each other, when we just each other,

36:16

all of these things that sort of minimize

36:18

the experience that you don't even think that they do, but

36:20

they do. It immediately

36:23

shuts off your capability for empathy.

36:25

So some of the stories that we pick,

36:28

our stories that you might

36:30

not think of as that terrible,

36:33

right, um is is having

36:35

a stutter that terrible? Well,

36:38

if it's the biggest thing in

36:41

your life, if it has kept you separate

36:43

from the life that you want to live and from

36:45

connecting with people the way you want to, yeah,

36:47

it is. And nobody benefits

36:50

from this sort of comparison of this is better or

36:52

this is worse. Nobody like when you're

36:54

the person trying to sort of hold

36:56

your terrible thing up above

36:58

somebody else's, Like, does that make you feel better?

37:01

Not? Usually? Not? Usually

37:04

So that concludes my answer.

37:09

Do you think of podcasting

37:12

as a new community that

37:14

you're building? Because I find that we're

37:17

all creating conversations. Now it used to

37:19

be like what you heard on Oprah? And now it's like, oh,

37:21

did you hear the story on

37:23

you know, such and such a podcast? That it's

37:25

creating conversation and community and

37:28

conversations around grief and empathy. Like

37:30

do you do you think about that as

37:32

you're creating because I find it on the other end

37:35

as a listener that it's happening

37:37

more in conversation, that we're creating

37:39

community around being able to open

37:41

conversations based on topics. I

37:45

mean, I think I've come to understand that as

37:47

I've been making family secrets, and also

37:49

as I've been on tour for Inheritance, and I realized

37:52

that my events start becoming sort

37:54

of de factove support groups for people. People have

37:56

come to my events and then people help them discover

37:58

their biological fathers. I mean, all sorts of astounding

38:00

things have happened because people

38:02

are gathering and we want to gather, you

38:05

know, we want to gather. We're hungry for gathering

38:07

because we feel I think, you

38:09

know, so many of us so isolated by this, you

38:11

know, and by you know, being working

38:13

remotely or constantly being on our devices.

38:16

UM.

38:19

In this season, as we're leading

38:21

up to season two of Family Secrets,

38:23

UM, my producers made an

38:26

eight hundred number especially eight eight eight

38:28

secret zero where UM

38:31

where listeners can actually call in and anonymously

38:33

tell their own secrets. And I love

38:35

them too. At first, I thought, really, and

38:37

and it's it's this is fantastic thing because

38:40

I think that sense of piercing aloneness,

38:43

especially when it comes to emotions

38:46

that make us feel alone. We

38:48

feel alone when we grieve so

38:50

alone, we feel alone when

38:53

um, we are the keeper of a secret or

38:56

a secret has been kept from us UM

38:58

and then when it

39:00

gets revealed, you know, week after

39:03

week, when there's you know, these kinds

39:05

of conversations that are kind of exploding

39:07

some of the shame and isolation

39:10

surrounding like these kinds of stories.

39:13

I think that that's part of what's creating community,

39:15

because it's people even if they're listening to these

39:18

podcasts alone in their cars or late

39:20

at night, or you know, when they're by themselves, there's

39:22

a sense of oh, I'm not alone. I'm not alone I'm

39:24

not alone. And then and then that I

39:27

think does start to really build, um,

39:30

build something of a community. I

39:33

don't know if it's unique to podcasting.

39:36

I think just the intersection

39:38

of Internet and making

39:40

something just creates more

39:42

opportunity for fandom and for and

39:44

for people who like something to gather around

39:47

something that that they enjoy.

39:50

So I think that you kind of find

39:52

this around anything people

39:54

like enough. Yeah,

39:57

so um, the compliment that we're

39:59

just paid is, well, people seem more comfortable.

40:01

You're creating a language around these hard things.

40:03

And I think I'm I'm just saying a lot of

40:05

things that have been said by a lot of different people.

40:07

I don't think I've said literally anything original,

40:10

um, in my entire life. Possibly

40:13

I don't want to yet I don't think so. Um

40:16

all there's nothing new under this on. Everything

40:18

has been, Everything has been said. People

40:21

have always been dying. Um, it felt

40:23

like my husband was the first to die, but in

40:25

fact my mom's was I'm just kidding. Uh

40:28

and uh yeah, So

40:30

I think I'm just saying things

40:33

louder and in a different way and

40:35

in a newer medium.

40:37

But and and also I

40:40

can't take all the credit, and I don't think podcasting

40:42

can take all the credit for that. But I do think that

40:45

also because that question asked another

40:47

question, which is, every single time I do any events,

40:49

someone's like, I wanted to write a book about my husband

40:52

dying, but you did it. I didn't write

40:54

a book about your husband dying. Go write your

40:56

own book, Go make your own podcast, Go

40:59

tell your own story, whatever it is,

41:01

because it's yours. And that's that's the difference

41:04

between all of this is like it is yours

41:06

and the people around you, strangers,

41:08

they need to hear how you are getting through, whatever

41:11

you're getting through. And because every

41:13

single yes, the

41:16

stories of grief, stories of war,

41:19

stories of you know, love

41:21

and loss and heartbreak, um,

41:23

you know they've they've all been told. There

41:25

is there is no new story under the

41:27

sun. But every single telling of a

41:30

story is its own

41:32

individual snowflake of a story. Always.

41:35

Otherwise we'd be done, you know, we'd

41:37

be done. We'd be done with literature, we'd be done with art.

41:39

We've been done. You can still write that Devil's Where

41:42

product book. I am going to

41:44

you because you know there's Hamster

41:46

in that book. There there

41:49

is room for a whole another boss and a whole another

41:51

young woman showing up in New York. Yeah,

41:53

thank you, Maybe it will, but that that

41:55

really is I mean, I can't tell you how often I hear that from

41:57

students. It's like, Oh, it's it's diversion of

42:00

answering yourself to say, oh, that's been done, so

42:02

I can't do it. And was

42:04

that. I think that this concludes. I'd

42:22

like to thank Resoli Bookstore for hosting

42:24

the live taping of Family Secrets and

42:27

Derrek Clemens for recording it. And

42:29

i'd like to thank Nora mcinnerney. If

42:31

you haven't already, be sure to check

42:33

out and subscribe to her podcast, Terrible

42:36

Thanks for asking. Family

42:39

Secrets is an i Heeart Media production. For

42:51

more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the

42:54

I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or

42:56

wherever you listen to your favorite shows.