0:04

gays reading, where the greats drop by. Trendy authors tell us all the who, what, and why. Anyone can listen, cause we're spoiler free. gays reading. From poets and stars, to book club picks. Where the curious minds can get their fix. So you say you're not gay, well that's okay. There's something for everyone. gays reading.

Jason Blitman: 0:32

Hello, and welcome to a special bonus episode of gays reading. I'm your host, Jason Blitman and on today's show, we have the lovely Susan Rieger, talking to us about her book, like mother, like mother, if you are new to gays raining, make sure to follow us on Instagram at gays reading. We have giveaways. Almost every week, we have information about new episodes, shout outs to other books. Uh, and so I highly recommend taking a look at our Instagram page. And we also have most of our episodes over on YouTube. So on today's episode, we have Susan, Rieger the author of like mother, like mother, the Barnes and noble book club pick for November and December. this is not like other episodes because typically I'll sit down and have a conversation with an author specifically about their book. We'll talk about themes. We'll talk about their life. We'll talk about how things are related. But here. And like mother, like mother, there is a podcast called elephant memories. And so what Susan and I do is essentially create. Our version of elephant memories. And so now enjoy this very special episode of gays reading recorded live in the penguin random house office says elephant memories. Susan, I'm a little stressed because

Susan Rieger: 2:00

I've done

Jason Blitman: 2:01

so many in person author interviews and I've done like a hundred podcast author interviews but this is my first in person podcast interview. I think

Susan Rieger: 2:13

think that's sort of evening the ground then between us,

Jason Blitman: 2:16

ground then. Yes, but, and yet for, for our listeners. We're about a six foot table length apart from each other, and we have giant microphones in front of us, so I can only see Susan from the nose up.

Susan Rieger: 2:31

Right.

Jason Blitman: 2:33

I'm so happy to meet you.

Susan Rieger: 2:35

I'm so happy to be here and meet you.

Jason Blitman: 2:37

And oh yes, for our listeners, we are in the Penguin Random House offices. This is a very special day for us, for me certainly. I hope for you too.

Susan Rieger: 2:46

Well, my book just dropped on Tuesday, so I'm

Jason Blitman: 2:49

Yes, it's what a week you're having.

Susan Rieger: 2:50

it's been a busy

Jason Blitman: 2:51

Um, it was just announced this morning, you are an Aardvark book club pick. Congratulations. Anyone could go to aardvarkbookclub. com, that's two A's, and you could pick out Like Mother, Like Mother, and use the code GAYSREADING to get your book for 4. FYI.

Susan Rieger: 3:07

That's a bargain.

Jason Blitman: 3:08

know it is a bargain! And I didn't tell Susan to say that! It is a bargain. and you are the Barnes Noble book club pick? Yeah. you're all over the place. I told someone this morning, I was talking to you, and they were like, That book is everywhere. Oh,

Susan Rieger: 3:21

that's

Jason Blitman: 3:21

Yes, that is good.

Susan Rieger: 3:22

what I like. You know, I'm 78 and it's Cinderella.

Jason Blitman: 3:25

You are not

Susan Rieger: 3:26

I am 78.

Jason Blitman: 3:28

47

Susan Rieger: 3:28

children are 47 and 56. We've all come clean. Ever since Laurie Siegel at 96 was writing for The New Yorker, I figure, you know.

Jason Blitman: 3:37

Good for you. I'm obsessed. Okay. We're going to get into the weeds about something deeply related to the book in a minute, but for listeners who have not picked up the book yet, can you tell us a little bit about what Like Mother, Like Mother is? Like

Susan Rieger: 3:51

Mother is a family story, and essentially I'm only interested in families. I think the family is the world in a nutshell. And at the center of the book, the beating heart of the book, is Lila Pereira, who is a big time workaholic newspaper editor who, um, is always working,

Jason Blitman: 4:11

and

Susan Rieger: 4:12

is really, as she would say to anybody, not fit to be a mother. Her own mother disappeared when she was two, her father was violent, but she married the nicest man in the world, and he has raised their children. He wanted children. The pulse of the book is the youngest daughter, Grace, who wants her mother around. And, um,

Jason Blitman: 4:31

children get

Susan Rieger: 4:32

Lila's just not available for that, though, as they get, as her children get older, she talks to them, like people. Um, but she's not cuddly, they call her by her first name. And Grace, even at 30, is still sort of smarting from this, and she writes a book about her family as a novel. And she winds up hurting some people, and not at all assuaging her own sense of hurt.

Jason Blitman: 4:56

of

Susan Rieger: 4:58

one of the themes of the book is

Jason Blitman: 5:00

one of the themes of the book

Susan Rieger: 5:06

Yeah, that's right. Um,

Jason Blitman: 5:07

Grace grow up? I knew that it would live on the same shelf as Ann Napolitano's Hello Beautiful, which I

Susan Rieger: 5:16

loved.

Jason Blitman: 5:17

and then I read the first page, and my grandmother is LIla.

Susan Rieger: 5:21

So,

Jason Blitman: 5:23

I already felt, uh, a deep kinship to

Susan Rieger: 5:26

the book. Right. Uh, Something

Jason Blitman: 5:29

I just had to ask because I'm sitting in front of you and I need to know. This

Susan Rieger: 5:32

is, mm,

Jason Blitman: 5:33

I would say, a pretty big part of the book. But personally, I'm pointing to Susan. Uh, have you ever done 23andMe? No. Are you worried about what would

Susan Rieger: 5:43

happen? No. No. No.

Jason Blitman: 5:44

My parents

Susan Rieger: 5:46

don't think so. I think my parents are my parents. And I think my sisters are my sisters. But I don't think what it would add to me at this point in my life.

Jason Blitman: 5:57

Maybe you'd find a fabulous distant relative. I Oh, oh, Oh, I don't think so. I

Susan Rieger: 6:03

I don't think so. I have enough

Jason Blitman: 6:05

Dennis in the book. I'm at capacity with

Susan Rieger: 6:08

unlike Dennis in the

Jason Blitman: 6:10

been married. I have a

Susan Rieger: 6:12

at capacity with relatives. Also, I've been married twice. I have a stepson whom I raised from my first marriage. I have two stepsons from this marriage. I have my husband's ex wife, who's a friend. I mean, doesn't, that doesn't. And their wives,

Jason Blitman: 6:28

for you. Although on one hand it's like you're at capacity, on the other hand, what's one more?

Susan Rieger: 6:33

What's one more? Right, right. I'm very glass at full in that way. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 6:37

Bring it on, bring on more family. no, it would stress me out, and my husband is very, uh, anti 23andme, no offense to 23andme, but, um, just cause he's like, the government doesn't need to have our information, and, All of that. So that freaks me out.

Susan Rieger: 6:52

I'm with, I'm with him too. I was just fingerprinted for the first time to get my TSA.

Jason Blitman: 6:56

Mmm. I know, PreCheck. I have mine. You've never had it before? It's gonna change

Susan Rieger: 7:01

your life. I hope so. I just got it. So, and they just booked me tickets with it,

Jason Blitman: 7:05

Yes! Good. And when you have, in the future, and this is a PSA to anyone who maybe is new to TSA PreCheck. Here's a TSA PSA. I just coined that phrase.

Susan Rieger: 7:16

That's great.

Jason Blitman: 7:18

when you book in the future, you have to remember to put your frequent traveler number whenever you book so that you can have the TSA PreCheck appear on your

Susan Rieger: 7:27

ticket. Oh,

Jason Blitman: 7:29

FYI. It doesn't just show up.

Susan Rieger: 7:31

Oh, you have to put it

Jason Blitman: 7:32

Yes, you have to put a number in. So make sure you have saved that somewhere. Okay,

Susan Rieger: 7:37

that number. I'll, I'll fly any, I'll fly any airline.

Jason Blitman: 7:40

Okay, so I ask about 23andMe for our listeners because, family history is a big part of the book. going to a completely different aspect of the book, there's a terrific character named Ruth. And podcasting is a big piece of her story. Were you a podcast fan before writing

Susan Rieger: 8:03

No, no I was not, but I loved radio. I, I grew up on talk radio, I mean, NPR and things like that, and I, I loved it. And so, I'm, I'm not much of a, never was much of a television watcher. Oh.

Jason Blitman: 8:15

Are you Now

Susan Rieger: 8:15

or no? No. Movie and theater.

Jason Blitman: 8:19

Movie

Susan Rieger: 8:19

I like to go to a movie theater.

Jason Blitman: 8:22

Uhhuh Do you have a TV at home?

Susan Rieger: 8:23

Oh yes, we have, but not a, it's only 42 inches, which I understand is very small these days. My, my husband,

Jason Blitman: 8:30

is relatively small too.

Susan Rieger: 8:31

my husband is, is, has a direct line to, um, MSNBC.

Jason Blitman: 8:36

Totally

Susan Rieger: 8:37

fair. That's what. do

Jason Blitman: 8:38

you have one in your bedroom? No. No, we don't either. Yeah.

Susan Rieger: 8:41

Okay.

Jason Blitman: 8:42

I had a feeling. so you were not a podcast person. How did podcasting come to be in

Susan Rieger: 8:45

the book? Well, I'm very interested in journalists and journalism, uh, and I always thought I would be a journalist. And,

Jason Blitman: 8:53

was

Susan Rieger: 8:54

uh, in fact, when I was thinking after college what I would do, I thought journalism school, maybe, or law school. And I went to law school instead because most of the journalists I knew didn't, hadn't gone to journalism school. So I thought I'll go to law school, see what that gives. but afterwards, I, I had a baby straight away, and I didn't want to work 80 hours a week. And so I started teaching, and I started writing articles for newspapers, op ed type of things. So, and I've always loved journalists. I, we have, we have, uh, So many subscriptions, you know. I didn't cancel the Washington Post, but I would like to cancel my Prime membership, though I can't, I don't think I can. I don't think I have the heart to do that, much as I'm annoyed with Mr. Bezos. I know.

Jason Blitman: 9:41

can. Politics creep

Susan Rieger: 9:45

creep in. Politics creep into the

Jason Blitman: 9:47

politics into the book.

Susan Rieger: 9:54

Can you give us a little context for what Elephant Memories is? for Ruth, Elephant Memories was supposed to be interviewing people, not aggressively, but to get their stories. And she wanted to do one ordinary person and one more prominent person and ask them the same question. And the beginning question, which was prompted by Grace, her best friend, was to give a talk about a grandmother. And, uh, Grace winds up giving a talk about her grandmother, and another person winds up giving a talk about his grandmother. You could have any other topic, you know, you know, your first date, your, your second marriage, anything you wanted to talk about. But they would be more personal issues rather than what's your favorite book. You know, it's things like that.

Jason Blitman: 10:45

Uh, it's described in the book as Terry Gross meets StoryCorps. Right. I loved reading about elephant memories, and so I wanted to ask about your elephant memories. so, let's start with a grandmother story.

Susan Rieger: 11:02

grandmother story. My grandmother, uh, died when I was 26. And our relationship really, started when I was 21 and moved to New York. Um, moved back to New York. I, I was born in New York. Um, and anytime I didn't live in New York, I was in exile. and my grandmother, my family is very left wing. My grandfather led the Lawrence Strike of 1912. And I would say they were anarchists, wobblies, socialists, Lovestonites, on that spectrum. Though I remember my grandmother saying to me at one point, Uh, the only thing to do is vote the straight Democratic ticket. but, This is my favorite grandmother story. It gives you an inkling of how wonderful she was. I was moving in, this is 1972, 1971,

Jason Blitman: 11:48

1971, with my,

Susan Rieger: 11:51

the man who would become my husband, but not for two years. And my mother was a little, I mean she was fine, but I wouldn't say she loved it. My grandmother was completely fine about it. She thought, this is fine. And then she said to me, you know, Your grandfather and I were never married, and I said, no, I didn't know that. And she said, a lot of our friends weren't married. We, you know, I mean, if you're an anarchist and you live by your principles, you can't have the state interfering in your private life. And so she bought me, as a housewarming present, two sets of sheets for my bed. Our bed. And I thought, how many people in 1972 had a granny like that?

Jason Blitman: 12:38

Wow. Wow. You said your relationship with her started at 21?

Susan Rieger: 12:45

Close, but I have earlier memories. Oh,

Jason Blitman: 12:47

Oh, in terms of memories.

Susan Rieger: 12:49

Now, memories, my first memory of her, it's, it's, I remember, she lived in Knickerbocker Village, which is down in an area now called Two Bridges, but which was, was sort of the deep Lower East Side.

Jason Blitman: 13:00

Mm-Hmm.

Susan Rieger: 13:01

And it was an old housing project and had been there for a million years and it was very hard to get her out of it because she had lived there since 1939, 1940. And you had, you walked into her part of the building through a pharmacy.

Jason Blitman: 13:18

pharmacy, and it

Susan Rieger: 13:19

it was very dark, and then you'd go up to her, I'd do her thing in an elevator, and I lived in a small town, small city, and the idea of taking an elevator to your place where you lived, I thought was heaven. I just couldn't wait to have an elevator of my own.

Jason Blitman: 13:35

Do you now? Oh, Yes,

Susan Rieger: 13:36

I do. Yes, I do. I've always tried to have an elevator. And so, um, I was meant for urban life. I was meant for apartment dwelling. So, I I, uh, everything was dark and I'd get into my grandmother's apartment and it was dark. And I'm probably about five or six because she moved out a little after that. and, she was sort of part of the furniture. I mean, you could just lean against her. You could sit in her lap. I don't remember having any conversations with her. But I remember her as being physically available. I

Jason Blitman: 14:12

And

Susan Rieger: 14:14

remember when my own grandchildren were born, I sort of said to my daughter, I'd sort of like to be like the furniture. I'd like them to come and just lean against me, sit on my lap. They're too big now, but they used to do that. They used to just come over and sit on my lap or, you know, squinch into you when you were reading to them. That's what I wanted to like. Now we

Jason Blitman: 14:34

we talk. Ever present.

Susan Rieger: 14:35

Ever present kind of thing. So that's one of the things my grandmother gave me. Oh,

Jason Blitman: 14:39

I love that. Though, you'd said you'd been in exile. What did you, what did you mean by

Susan Rieger: 14:45

mean by that? Well, we, we moved to California briefly when I was six months old from New York. And then we came back and lived, I grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania, which I always say is Nebraska. And, uh,

Jason Blitman: 15:00

and

Susan Rieger: 15:01

wanted to go to Barnard College in New York. My mother thought it was too dicey, though she had lived in New York Until she, until we left for California. So I, I went, in my day, I, I went to college in 1964. You went to a woman's college, and I went to Mount Holyoke. And when my daughter found out I had gone to a woman's college, she looked at me as though I were a Martian. This can't possibly be my mother. But I did. So there I was in the woods of Massachusetts, which was not the right place for me to go. I should have gone to the University of Michigan. I like big, messy places, something like that. Immediately after, I graduated, I came to New York, and I lived there for 15 years. then my husband, my first husband, got a job in Amherst, Massachusetts, which I went along with. I thought my, if I didn't move, our marriage would

Jason Blitman: 15:49

There was a, there was a bit of a sigh, a bit of a hesitation, not quite an eye roll, but. I felt my marriage didn't go well,

Susan Rieger: 15:59

felt my marriage would end if I didn't go along. It's a big job, and um, the marriage ended anyway, so there you go. So, um, and I lived there for eight years, and then I got a job at Yale as the dean of one of the residential colleges in the, um, And so I was in New Haven. And so I always thought, well, I'm opening in New Haven and next stop New York City.

Jason Blitman: 16:25

York City. Pardon? Oh, yes.

Susan Rieger: 16:26

Are you a theater gal? Pardon? Oh, yes. Deep into theater.

Jason Blitman: 16:31

I mean someone doesn't say opening in

Susan Rieger: 16:33

uh, New Haven. New

Jason Blitman: 16:35

and then moving on to New York But if you don't know that as an out of town tryout city Are you familiar with the musical ragtime?

Susan Rieger: 16:43

I'm not, actually. It's on right now. It

Jason Blitman: 16:46

on right now and a major plot point is the Lawrence strike Oh, that's

Susan Rieger: 16:51

Oh, that's right.

Jason Blitman: 16:52

said that, and I saw it earlier this week, and I was very surprised to hear you say that. Um, but it's a beautiful show about the turn of the century, and about, uh, family, and immigrants, and I think you'd really enjoy

Susan Rieger: 17:06

Oh, I should, I actually, I think I read the book.

Jason Blitman: 17:10

But, um, but a

Susan Rieger: 17:12

But, um, but a lot of books, I mean if I read the book 40 years ago, I'm not sure how much I can call it up. Unless I, if I've read things three or four times, I can

Jason Blitman: 17:22

four times, I can call it a

Susan Rieger: 17:24

Well, I've read all of Jane Austen, pretty much.

Jason Blitman: 17:27

Austen, pretty much.

Susan Rieger: 17:28

Yeah, I've read, um, I've read a lot of Henry James multiple times, and I've read Middlemarch, and I've read Moby Dick, and I've read, um Moby Dick multiple times? Three. Is that multiple? Almost multiple. Of course it is. Right. War and Peace, I've read twice. What?

Jason Blitman: 17:47

Susan, who has the time?

Susan Rieger: 17:49

who ha Oh, you know, you don't read it in an afternoon. You give yourself weeks to do it.

Jason Blitman: 17:57

many people who have never read it once. I'm very impressed.

Susan Rieger: 18:00

No, you ju Yeah. No, I don't read big books anymore. I have to say I, I have gone away and I picked up middle March recently thinking I would read it. Mm-Hmm. And because I loved it. And I think the last time I read it, it was 25 years ago, maybe more. I said, I started and I said, I'm not sure I have the stamina right now, but I think my own book was coming out and I, you know, I haven't been able to read anything. I can barely read the New Yorker or the Times or anything like that. So, but um, no, I'm a re reader.

Jason Blitman: 18:31

didn't publish until I was 67. I played the New

Susan Rieger: 18:40

I didn't write, I didn't publish a novel until I was 67. No way! Here's to late starters, right? Late bloomers.

Jason Blitman: 18:48

impressive. I love that. I love that you used the word exile

Susan Rieger: 18:52

though.

Jason Blitman: 18:53

It paints a very specific picture of how you were feeling in that

Susan Rieger: 18:56

time. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 18:57

Outside of your grandmother, there's

Susan Rieger: 18:58

a there's a, A moment

Jason Blitman: 19:01

in Like Mother, Like Mother where Ruth is applying for a job and the person she's interviewing with, she had sent him material from her podcast and he says that he loves the episode of hers about earliest memories.

Susan Rieger: 19:19

Right.

Jason Blitman: 19:20

Do you have an earliest

Susan Rieger: 19:21

memory? I do have an earliest memory and it came, and I became aware of it as a memory. Only after talking to my mother about it, I thought it was a dream. And it kept on recurring to me visually. And it was of a deer, a buck, standing in the doorway of a house or a building. And it was dark behind me, and there was another person, shadow of somebody else, And I'm quite, and I'm a small person looking up at this, I'm looking up at this thing, and I was in that, I was, I guess maybe I talked to my mother when I was in psychoanalysis, and I kept on thinking this is a dream that defies interpretation. Not that I ever was very interested in dream interpretation. Um, but, I said to my mother, I I have this dream, and mom said, a deer got caught in our house when we were in California. When you were about two. So that, so my, it, it's a memory, but I didn't know it as a memory. It's interesting. I often,

Jason Blitman: 20:27

Knowing that I was going to talk to you about this was thinking about my own earliest memories and I similarly Thought to myself was that a dream or really do I only remember photos from a moment That I saw right so oh, I'm looking back at something that was taken where the photo was taken or do I actually remember being present

Susan Rieger: 20:51

And

Jason Blitman: 20:51

so many of my memories are weird snippets. They're almost like my own photographs in my mind. I don't see like the full, I don't see anything

Susan Rieger: 21:01

active.

Jason Blitman: 21:03

I see this little piece of something from my childhood.

Susan Rieger: 21:07

Yeah. You catch a moment?

Jason Blitman: 21:08

Yeah. Freaked me out when I started thinking about it for some reason. I'm excited to be talking to you about all of this. My, my own grandmother, I said, my grandma Lila, she is 92 and lives in Florida, but grew up, uh, in Brighton beach. And I realized that I never really heard too many of her stories. And as my own, you

Susan Rieger: 21:35

know,

Jason Blitman: 21:36

The inside of me is a little mix of Terry Gross and StoryCorps. Uh, last time I saw her, I pulled out my phone and recorded, and I basically just kept asking her questions

Susan Rieger: 21:47

Oh, that's so terrific.

Jason Blitman: 21:49

And so she told me all about, you know, growing up in Brighton Beach, and her experience walking the streets of New York City with my late grandfather, and it was just so special, and I, and it's sort of my own 23andMe.

Susan Rieger: 22:03

Yeah. Right. My grandmother and I would talk a lot about her past, and about the strike, and about, and she and my grandfather separated, um, and never got divorced. They were never married. So it may have been common law. Sure. It was early enough then to be it. But, um, My mother said whenever Rana talked about my grandfather, she was, she would almost spit to the side. But when she talked to me about it, it was a kind of high point of her life, a kind of heroic moment. When, you know, there was a group of women who went up to Lawrence and brought children down. A kind of, you know, kinder transport while the strike was going on. Took them into their homes so they could go to school and be fed. and my grandfather spent a year in jail. because of, uh, the strike and you know, so I got all these stories that I would not going to get from my mother. so she was special. It's also interesting, like

Jason Blitman: 22:58

I don't think my, either of my parents asked their parents any of these questions. I don't think they thought to ask

Susan Rieger: 23:05

them.

Jason Blitman: 23:06

And I'm, I crave to know what

Susan Rieger: 23:10

life was like. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 23:11

And for me, I'm the only grandchild that has ever lived in New York City. So my grandparents, my paternal grandparents, lived in New York. And

Susan Rieger: 23:21

of

Jason Blitman: 23:22

They lived in the city and now they raise children on Long Island, but I am, I am their only progeny that lived in the city as well. So there's something very special to me about like having walked the same streets as my grandparents. I'm curious. I have two, I'm curious about two things. What would your elephant memories question be for somebody? If you had one thing.

Susan Rieger: 23:49

to ask? One thing to ask somebody, Oh, Anna Deavere Smith has four questions, and I loved one of them. Uh, at the fourth one, it's have you ever been accused of something you didn't do?

Jason Blitman: 24:04

Huh. The

Susan Rieger: 24:06

Because that is one of the things, when somebody is, you know, like death penalty cases, when somebody has been imprisoned and, and found guilty for something they didn't do, it just infuriates me. If somebody is wrongly accused, it's one of those things hackles up. And even, it doesn't have to be a murder, it can be, it could be anything.

Jason Blitman: 24:27

or gun. And, um.

Susan Rieger: 24:29

And so, uh, I think I would ask that.

Jason Blitman: 24:33

The first thing that comes to mind, you didn't particularly ask me, but something came to mind so I'm going to share it. Uh, the first thing that comes to mind is in relation to how I might respond to something tonally, how I might be accused of being rude or accused of being passive aggressive or accused of having a negative tone about something where that is not the

Susan Rieger: 25:00

true. Right.

Jason Blitman: 25:01

And that is very different, I think, than what most people think of when they think of being accused of something. But, I've noticed, perhaps historically in my family, people don't always hear how they sound. Hmm.

Susan Rieger: 25:29

and, and had a, grew up in China and Canada, and when he was, he went to boarding school on his ninth birthday. And within a very short time of knowing him, Peter would say, I was sent to boarding school on my ninth birthday. for listening.

Jason Blitman: 25:43

And

Susan Rieger: 25:43

it's, it's very telling. It's very telling about who he was, and, and he spent, you know, the next, you know, 15, 18 years in boarding schools and boarding, university. My second husband says sort of sheepishly, uh, no, he's an only child. And he said, well, well, I grew up on Park Avenue. Not fancy Park Avenue, but Park Avenue. And I think just that.

Jason Blitman: 26:10

I

Susan Rieger: 26:10

There you have the two men in, in some kind of way. Do you have a signature story? The kind of story that you think? Um, I think my signature story is that my father is Jewish and my mother's Italian. and that made me always a kind of outlier.

Jason Blitman: 26:28

Hmm. Everybody's

Susan Rieger: 26:29

Uh, everybody's half Jewish now.

Jason Blitman: 26:32

wasn't

Susan Rieger: 26:33

that wasn't true when I was growing

Jason Blitman: 26:35

growing up. Oh! There you go. They got along, they

Susan Rieger: 26:42

They got along, they got along terrifically. I always say, my mother looked like an Italian movie star, and my father looked like an Israeli general. They were a very pretty couple, so that was, that was there. I love that. Yeah. What would mine be?

Jason Blitman: 26:59

I don't know, I keep going back to something related to the arts because I was always a theater

Susan Rieger: 27:03

kid.

Jason Blitman: 27:04

And I feel like that, being sort of this outgoing kid who, who spent a lot of time talking to the adults in the room and not his peers is probably the thing that really defines me, as a person. Which I look forward to telling my therapist about when I talk to him next week, because that was a new, that just came out of me right now. Yeah. Signature stories, but sometimes it,

Susan Rieger: 27:28

I like signature stories, but sometimes it, uh, I remember having a conversation with Courtney Sullivan at some event a couple of years ago. And, and I mentioned my theory about, signature stories. And she said, mine is that I'm Irish, and I'm Irish on all sides. And then she did 23andMe. And there were discoveries made.

Jason Blitman: 27:49

Everybody wasn't Irish. Which is, who's not a sponsor, by the way.

Susan Rieger: 27:57

way. No, no, which is, which is truly, truly distressing is the amount of people whose fathers, mostly, aren't whom they thought they were, and the amount of incest. Not necessarily father, you know, not necessarily parent, child, or even brother, sister, but incest. And I thought, well, there's another reason not to do 23andMe.

Jason Blitman: 28:21

Who wants

Susan Rieger: 28:22

who wants to know that? Right.

Jason Blitman: 28:25

know that? After talking about the version of the podcast that no longer exists in the

Susan Rieger: 28:36

book. Well, one of the things about my own book is that, as you have discovered, it doesn't proceed chronologically. It goes back and forth. And my, I have a theory that in life when you meet somebody, the first time you meet them, they don't start with the day they were born. They start with the day they were born. And you

Jason Blitman: 28:51

Unless

Susan Rieger: 28:51

out, right, that's right, but as you, you, you learn other things first. Um, and then over time you learn all different kinds of stories about them. And so I try to tell my novels that way, but Whit said, Whitney had, Whitney Frick, my editor said to me, When you do this, when you start a chapter, end the chapter in the same place, you know. Sure. Close it. And it was a very good piece of advice. She's a terrific editor. Yeah. And it really made a different, and made the book clearer.

Jason Blitman: 29:28

Shout out to Whit Frick, we love her books. She's also the editor of Hello Beautiful by Anna Politano that I mentioned earlier. Wait, now I have to know how come, how come Signature Story has left

Susan Rieger: 29:38

the book?

Jason Blitman: 29:38

I

Susan Rieger: 29:39

I don't know. I just, I guess I thought I'll keep that for myself. I love that.

Jason Blitman: 29:43

What a beau that's a beautiful way to end this conversation, keeping it for yourself. Susan, I told you I could talk to you all day and I'm sure I still could. I, not only am I not used to doing this in person, we also have an engineer in the room, which is also tremendously. I never have someone else in the room. But thank you Clayton, for being here.

Susan Rieger: 30:02

Yes.

Jason Blitman: 30:03

how special,

Susan Rieger: 30:05

Yeah, and you've been a terrific questioner.

Jason Blitman: 30:07

Oh, thank you. Um, everyone go get your copy of Like Mother, Like Mother by Susan Rieger wherever you get your books or Aardvark Book Club, that's two A's, A A R D V A R K, bookclub. com, and use the code GAYSREADING to get your book for four dollars. Very good. Susan, have a wonderful rest of your day.

Susan Rieger: 30:31

too. Thanks for having me.

Jason Blitman: 30:33

you. Thank you.