0:04

gays reading where the greats drop by trendy authors. Tell us all the who, what, and why. Anyone can listen. Comes we're spoiler free Reading from politic stars to book club picks where the curious minds can get their picks. So you say you're not gay. Well that's okay. There's something for everyone. Gays Reading. Hello and welcome to Gays Reading. I'm your host, Jason Blitman, and on today's special episode, I am talking to the author Erin O. White, who of course wrote the December Gaze Reading Book Club Pick like Family. The Gaze Reading Book Club is through Altoa. If you are unfamiliar, you could check out the link. In the bio on Instagram or in the show notes, uh, what do you get when you join the Gays Reading Book Club? You have a curated book that's delivered monthly to your door. I call these books Accessibly Literary. You get 30% off all store's website. You get access to the. Kiki to talk about the books, which is the online community. There will be exclusive author, q and as and Altoa donates a children's book to lgbtqia plus youth organizations for every book club signup that comes in. And the club exclusively supports lgbtqia plus authors. So all really exciting reasons to join the club. Again, the link to join, you could find that in the show notes and also in the link tree on Instagram. At Gaze reading. Very simple. Uh, you could find us@gaysreading.com. We are on Substack. We are all over the place generally. This conversation is spoiler free. We want you to read the book. Go check it out. Join the club. And yeah, that's everything. Erin's bio is in the show notes. And now just please enjoy my conversation with Aaron O. White.

Erin O. White: 2:00

it was very clear.

Jason Blitman: 2:01

you. Oh my God, I, you made me laugh and I slapped instead of my knee, my desk. And I think that did something to

Erin O. White: 2:10

Oh, I think that's what

Jason Blitman: 2:12

Yeah. I got way too aggressive over here. I know. I Erin O White. Welcome to Gay's Reading. Are you kidding? I'm so excited not only to talk to you today, but because your book like Family is the December Gaze reading booklet.

Erin O. White: 2:33

that's so exciting. I'm so honored. Thank you so much for choosing

Jason Blitman: 2:37

Of course. And like of course I chose you prior to knowing that Barnes and Noble chose you too, which is, tough competition for me.

Erin O. White: 2:44

know you're on the, you're way, it's way up.

Jason Blitman: 2:48

The Midwestern ladies love you. And so do the gays.

Erin O. White: 2:53

I love that my Zen diagram is just, it's just where I want it to

Jason Blitman: 2:56

What does the O stand for?

Erin O. White: 2:59

O'Neill,

Jason Blitman: 3:01

Oh

Erin O. White: 3:01

my mother's maiden name. It's my middle name, and, Erin White is a very common name. It's, it is just hard. I just disappear into a sea of Aaron White. So when I write, I use my middle

Jason Blitman: 3:12

love it. Love it. Erin O White. Of course. No, it feels very special.

Erin O. White: 3:19

Does it. Good. I'm glad.

Jason Blitman: 3:20

It does.

Erin O. White: 3:21

I'm glad.

Jason Blitman: 3:22

Jason Scott Libman, if

Erin O. White: 3:24

I was just gonna say also very special is for special.

Jason Blitman: 3:29

Thank you. Understand.

Erin O. White: 3:30

I do.

Jason Blitman: 3:32

What, okay. What do I need to talk to you about? What is your elevator pitch for like family?

Erin O. White: 3:37

Okay I have two elevator pitches depending on like how long the elevator ride is so if we're just going two

Jason Blitman: 3:44

yeah, let's just keep it simple because I want everyone to buy the book. I hate reading too much about a book, but what do people need to know?

Erin O. White: 3:51

Basically what you need to know is that like families, a love letter to queer families and small town life, that's what I like to say. Kind of like's Creek, but no one lives in a hotel and instead of David is a lot of lesbian.

Jason Blitman: 4:03

Yes, all of that is true.

Erin O. White: 4:05

It's also becoming of middle-aged novel. I like to say, here are all these people, these characters who have worked so hard to get what they want, their marriage, their children, their friends, their families. But suddenly they just realize they want a whole bunch of other things. But then these new things are turning out to be a lot harder to get and messing with their lives in various ways.

Jason Blitman: 4:23

Yeah. It's there's I have my little list of things I wanna talk to you about, but it's so much more than a chosen family. I think chosen fam, I don't think I realized how simple the term chosen family was until I read this book.

Erin O. White: 4:41

I love that.

Jason Blitman: 4:43

There's something so much more, I think, intentional about it than oh no, I just love them and they're my chosen family. No, it's like there is a very deep, I am choosing capital C, sort of these humans to surround myself with.

Erin O. White: 4:59

Isn't it true that we've especially in the queer community, we use that term so much, right? Or sometimes I actually feel like we use it, but people outside the community also use it in various ways and I think it's, it gets a little flat, so then it starts to feel like what is that? And I really wanted to part what I wanted to do in the book was to excavate a whole lot of language particularly around queer life. But one of the things that I wanted to say about chosen family or just or found family is sometimes a term that people use,

Jason Blitman: 5:28

Right.

Erin O. White: 5:29

is that it's really not just about people that you enjoy being around or people who have a fun Thanksgiving. It's really not about like people who you can take a vacation with or it's really about people with whom you have created a sense of mutual obligation And really are there to live life alongside those people, even when it feels inconvenient or painful or when you'd rather be doing something else, right? Because that is so much of what family is

Jason Blitman: 5:58

Yeah. Thank you for unpacking that because it really articulated what I meant by so much more than chosen family. Armisted Moin uses the term logical family,

Erin O. White: 6:09

I love that actually. I,

Jason Blitman: 6:12

Which is really nice. But there's something about just like the intentionality of it, right? It isn't about convenience, it's about intention.

Erin O. White: 6:19

Yeah, and oftentimes it so inconvenient.

Jason Blitman: 6:23

Uhhuh,

Erin O. White: 6:23

Which I think is true a lot for my, in some, that's true for my characters. It would be more convenient sometimes if they could make different choices, but they have entered into these bonds with these people and so have work.

Jason Blitman: 6:35

I say all the time that there's a huge difference between relatives and family

Erin O. White: 6:40

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 6:41

and. And I think there's this very interesting point that you made about the obligation because I think people believe they're obligated to their relatives, but in fact, we're obligated to our family. And you don't, you are not necessarily blood related to your family. Even though we have, we're being told otherwise.

Erin O. White: 7:02

totally. I totally think that's true. Yeah. And then in the characters in my book have at different times feel uncomfortable by the obligations that, promises that they've made in the past, things that they've done out of joyful or willful obligation that are now changing dynamics in their families. But they all have to figure out a way to stick it out, which is so much of life.

Jason Blitman: 7:22

Yeah. And I, my like. Overarching metaphor for what the book is about, that I don't want to talk more about and you'll understand why momentarily, but it is a book about how people are bound together.

Erin O. White: 7:36

Yes, that's absolutely what

Jason Blitman: 7:38

yeah. And I was like, oh my God. That is what a great way to think about the entirety of the book.

Erin O. White: 7:42

I love that so much.

Jason Blitman: 7:44

I, yeah, it's, anyway, I was like getting Misty as I was going through my notes from revisit because I finished it so long ago.

Erin O. White: 7:51

Oh, thank you. I

Jason Blitman: 7:53

I didn't cry. I got Misty. Let's be. I know Yes. That someone on my call earlier today he did cry and so I was like, uhoh, I can't have too many tears in my episodes

Erin O. White: 8:04

No more tears. Okay. Okay.

Jason Blitman: 8:06

It's fine. We can

Erin O. White: 8:07

keep it.

Jason Blitman: 8:08

Yeah. Lighten, lighten fun. There are so many like unique friend and partner relationships throughout the book. What. What sort of was an inspiration for you? Because I think, it doesn't, it's not necessarily auto fiction, but I'm sure there is, it's such a unique book. We don't, as a queer community, this is not a typical book that we see all the time. It's just a very normal, lots of queer people living amongst each other. And it's the straight characters that are the outliers in the book. So, Yeah. Where did

Erin O. White: 8:41

Well, Okay. Where did it come from? I think, it came from a couple different obviously just in terms of like literary inspiration. The book really comes from my lifelong love affair essentially was domestic fiction, women's domestic fiction. So like even from the time I was very young, I was reading stories about families. I was reading like Madeline Les Meet The Austins and all of those stories. I've been so interested in that. And then as I got older, it was like Sue Miller and Mary Gordon and Meg Wooler and Lori Colwyn, and those were always the books that I loved more than anything. And as I grew up. It's a funny thing. You real, you understand yourself as a queer person, but then you have all these other loves, aesthetic loves, right? And so there I was, I really had a love for these domestic novels and I. It took me a long time to figure out how to do it, but I really had this sort of secret desire to write like the Great American lesbian novel. It was just about American, but they're all.

Jason Blitman: 9:46

Yeah.

Erin O. White: 9:47

And so that

Jason Blitman: 9:48

so special. That's so special.

Erin O. White: 9:51

you. It's really special. To me because it's just because I really got to do that thing, which is such a luxury, which is write the book you wanna read. And so that was really just, it was a joy in that way. And then more specific inspiration. My wife, our children in rural Massachusetts, Western Massachusetts in a. The particularities of rural life, especially with young children, there's a way that your life becomes very intimately intertwined with people around you. That's a little bit specific. It's just its own distinct thing. You spend a lot of time in other people's houses. Your children move in the same circles. You run into people all the time. You have to mend your fences. So to speak in a way that's it's like an interesting way to live and then it's an interesting way to raise your children. And so I started this in the pandemic after we moved to Minneapolis. And in some ways it was a way for me to revisit my children's childhoods, my early years of being married. No, not, my middle, my early middle age, I should say. And so that's another inspiration for it.

Jason Blitman: 10:57

That's really special. And I imagine people talk all the time about how writing books can be cathartic for themselves, but I wonder, was it again, cathartic is not the right word because I'm thinking more about okay, so I lived in New York City for many years and if I were to, and the idea of writing about New York now feels. Meaningful and nostalgic and I don't know, like cathartic isn't the right way to put it, but you were revisiting a time in your life through the lens of fiction. What was that experience like?

Erin O. White: 11:27

It was very it was very joyful. It was a very particular experience of nostalgia because of course, nostalgia oftentimes suggests the idea if you're feeling nostalgic about something, you're not always articulating the specifics of what the nostalgia comes from. But if in the writing of this book, I actually had to get very granular into the things. The tiny little things that maybe I was nostalgic for. And that was a lot of fun because I really did create these people are very fictional, but more the details of their sort of physical environment or their existence, or the archery classes or the jumping on the trampoline or eating oysters on Thanksgiving morning. Like it's more those details that are from my past. You, when you say you feel nostalgic or you miss something, it's sometimes just like a cloud of a feeling that you carry with you. But when I was writing the book, I got to actually create a little doll, a little dollhouse of my old life. And then I was actually manifesting objects and places and it was a lot fun.

Jason Blitman: 12:30

that's really special.

Erin O. White: 12:32

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 12:33

Circling back to you talking about having this book inside of you, you secretly wanted to write a book. The book addresses, I think the idea of learning more about yourself as you get older. There are two things I wanna talk about. One, the first sentence of your bio is that you are a debut novelist at 52, which congratulations. Incredible. I want to talk about that, but I'm also really curious what have you learned about yourself as you've gotten older through the process of writing this book? I'm sure the list is endless.

Erin O. White: 13:05

We do learn a lot as we get older. Even though we can't play as much pickleball I think interestingly, like I. I wrote this novel, so I started it in my late forties. And I, and the characters in the book, except for one of the couples, are really people who are just entering middle age and they're in their early forties. And I think what I, what was lovely about writing the book now is that I think it's a beautiful time of life. I think it's such a wild and chaotic time's. Interesting sort of being beginning of. You're still really looking around at people around you really closely examining their lives and their choices and wondering if you could have done, you're still wondering like, how did the choices that I make get me to this spot? And is there something I can still do to, can I have what she has essentially and I think that it's a time of both real beauty and connection and it's a time of real friction. Because you're still just wanting and want, and then over the course of your forties, I feel like life really just comes for everybody, right? It just comes at you fast and. A lot of that sort of jealousy or longing or striving starts to fall away a little bit and you figure out what your life is, right? The life that you're living. And what was great about writing about my characters is that I, at that age, is that I feel like I could see their beauties and their ambitions and all of what was good and exciting for them. And I could also see that they were racked with a lot of. They were torturing themselves a little bit, but because I wasn't writing it myself in my forties, I was able to give them a little more grace. I was able to give them a little more humor. I wasn't so much she was so jealous, and then she was more jealous, and then the jealousy was overwhelming. I was, I had moved past that in my own life. And so I feel like what I learned, I was able to give to my characters as they struggled.

Jason Blitman: 14:59

You instead you started writing in your late forties. You're in your early fifties in this moment, if, what would you, what would, what advice would you give your characters who are in their early forties right now?

Erin O. White: 15:13

I would tell them to just well, I.

Jason Blitman: 15:20

So to be fully transparent, I am 37. And what advice would you give to me as I embark into my forties? We don't need to, I don't need any artifice about it. Give me advice, Aaron.

Erin O. White: 15:30

I love it. Okay, let's just lay it out a 30 day plan.

Jason Blitman: 15:34

I literally had couples therapy right before this. So

Erin O. White: 15:38

I love a good couple

Jason Blitman: 15:39

yes

Erin O. White: 15:40

oh. The advice that I would give is. Not worry to really, to not worry,

Jason Blitman: 15:46

that to a lifelong worrier.

Erin O. White: 15:49

so you're not really gonna be able to take that in, are you?

Jason Blitman: 15:51

I'm gonna try. I am gonna do my best'cause that's what we

Erin O. White: 15:53

try. It's gonna, I think that the thing that I don't think I expected in at the age that you're at right now is that how much more I would continue to enjoy being here. Like just that really as time has gone on, living this life and being on this planet with these people that I love in this world, it's just such a ple, it's just a pleasure. And there's all of the struggle and there's the grief, and there's the mounting losses and all the things. But I do really feel like, I feel myself so much less concerned with what other, what has happened to other people and what I maybe could have gotten for myself again, because I just think, like what I was saying before is like, everyone's life is really hard, and I don't think I understood that really fully yet. For me,

Jason Blitman: 16:39

Yeah. No, I appreciate that.

Erin O. White: 16:41

Fran, you know Fran Lebowitz.

Jason Blitman: 16:43

Uh Huh.

Erin O. White: 16:44

Yeah. I don't know her personally,

Jason Blitman: 16:45

No, neither do I.

Erin O. White: 16:46

she, the

Jason Blitman: 16:48

I want to,

Erin O. White: 16:49

I know we will, let's manifest that. Yeah, let's work on that. Yeah. We'll she said that the way that she had cured herself of jealousy, she had been a terribly jealous person her whole life. And when she was in early middle age, she cured herself of jealousy by saying, Fran, and I don't can to her accent, you could be jealous of as many people as you wanna, but you have to be jealous of their entire life. Everything about them. And she's and then I really, it faded away. And so I took it Fran's advice to heart because isn't that so wise?

Jason Blitman: 17:18

Yeah.

Erin O. White: 17:20

So even now when I feel

Jason Blitman: 17:22

at home. She has a lot of time to think so.

Erin O. White: 17:25

I know, and she's just smoking and thinking, wearing the same suit every day. She has free in her mind. She just freed

Jason Blitman: 17:34

I'm gonna take everything that she says as gospel.

Erin O. White: 17:37

It's very wise, isn't it?

Jason Blitman: 17:38

Yeah, it

Erin O. White: 17:39

Next time you feel jealous of someone and my characters of course, do not take that advice to heart at all. No,

Jason Blitman: 17:46

no. It's a really interesting point because if we cherry pick what we're jealous of, then we're just jealous of all sorts of things. And so if we

Erin O. White: 17:55

exactly. And then we're living with this fallacy that you can cherry pick a life.

Jason Blitman: 18:00

And what you were just saying earlier about, how you didn't, how in your early forties you didn't realize how much was to come.

Erin O. White: 18:09

Yeah,

Jason Blitman: 18:10

So there's still or we can look around and say, how do we get that? How do we do that? We, there's still time to build that life, but yeah, we still can't cherry pick it per se.

Erin O. White: 18:20

We can't, but we can get so much good for ourselves.

Jason Blitman: 18:23

Yeah. Love has come up a lot in the last few sentences. It comes up in the book that love is a verb. Can you share a bit about that?

Erin O. White: 18:34

Sure. I think it really dovetails with the idea of what it means to, if we're really excavating this idea of chosen, found family. And the idea of obligation and then loving being a verb is really about the idea that. You can feel whatever you feel for another person. But PE, because we're human beings, because we're mammals, because we have physical needs and we have social needs, we have to be able to meet some of those for the people who we're close to. And you have to, if you're entering into a loving relationship with us, partner with a friend, with a child, so much of what you're gonna have do, that relationship is action. It's funny that whole like love language thing, like words of affirmation, whatever, all are physical,

Jason Blitman: 19:20

of service. What?

Erin O. White: 19:21

some service. And what is funny is I think that like acts of service in some ways is like its own thing. It's so essential to really any relationship is built on mutual love because you do really have to, you have to act for the people who are important to you because we really do need so much, and maybe that's something so small. You have to pick somebody's kid up from soccer practice, even though maybe you'd rather not, but but you or you do have to do things. It's part of being in like an ecosystem of friendship and or

Jason Blitman: 19:57

Yeah, I, my husband and I will often talk about how we are on the same team That is great and important. But there have been moments of recently where it's oh, I need to catch the ball. I need to kick the ball. I need to, pass the ball. There's all the sports metaphors that we could

Erin O. White: 20:17

Totally.

Jason Blitman: 20:18

but Right. It's being on a team is active.

Erin O. White: 20:22

That's right.

Jason Blitman: 20:22

Love.

Erin O. White: 20:23

And being on a team isn't just like agreeing with somebody all the time, right? Yeah. It's about having a shared goal.

Jason Blitman: 20:30

Nor is it just sitting on the bench?

Erin O. White: 20:32

No, although in my childhood it definitely was,

Jason Blitman: 20:35

hundred percent. No. I was in the outfield, twirling around,

Erin O. White: 20:40

Yeah, me

Jason Blitman: 20:40

picking at the grass.

Erin O. White: 20:42

Totally. And that was an important role that we played.

Jason Blitman: 20:44

Yes. We filled the field.

Erin O. White: 20:47

We filled the field with deep

Jason Blitman: 20:50

Yes. Basically just call me Fran. Yeah, Fran in the outfield.

Erin O. White: 20:56

in the, that's amazing. Actually in the outfield

Jason Blitman: 20:59

Could you imagine Fran in her

Erin O. White: 21:02

like a celebr on a celebrity softball team. be in like a lesbian celebrity softball team.

Jason Blitman: 21:09

How do we manifest this?

Erin O. White: 21:11

I dunno. That seems kind of amazing,

Jason Blitman: 21:13

I know. I love it.

Erin O. White: 21:14

right? We've got maybe like Abby WABA is like the pitcher captain, whatever those

Jason Blitman: 21:19

That seems

Erin O. White: 21:19

person who's in charge.

Jason Blitman: 21:22

Yeah. She does seem in charge.

Erin O. White: 21:24

Yeah. She'd be

Jason Blitman: 21:25

Oh my God. And then the manager is Wanda Sykes,

Erin O. White: 21:29

Oh, this is amazing. Yes, exactly. Yes. She could really manage the hell outta it. What would I do though, is the question?

Jason Blitman: 21:39

Cheerleader.

Erin O. White: 21:40

Yeah. Maybe profiles of players in Sports magazine.

Jason Blitman: 21:45

You could bring the orange slices. I don't know. I, for all I know, you're super athletic. I don't know.

Erin O. White: 21:52

not think Brandy Carlisle could be involved that.

Jason Blitman: 21:55

sure. Yeah. Jane Lynch, what's she gonna, she's like the first

Erin O. White: 21:58

Oh yeah, she'd be

Jason Blitman: 22:00

or something? Yeah. Yeah.

Erin O. White: 22:00

my wife would also be an incredible, she's an incredible athlete, so she could be third base. Is that a.

Jason Blitman: 22:06

I have no idea. Look at us casting our Celebrity League of their own. I didn't watch it, but

Erin O. White: 22:20

Okay. You're the then you're the part of the problem.

Jason Blitman: 22:23

I'm the problem. Listen, we really don't watch a lot of tv, which is I know it's weird.

Erin O. White: 22:27

love that for you. That's great. Yeah. I get

Jason Blitman: 22:30

me Fran. She doesn't watch TV either. I

Erin O. White: 22:34

Yeah. The similarities are justing.

Jason Blitman: 22:36

Oh my God. Things I never knew I needed to hear. Oh my God. We're the same. I'm probably just as much of a curmudgeon too.

Erin O. White: 22:45

This,

Jason Blitman: 22:46

I know.

Erin O. White: 22:47

she could just really get away with.

Jason Blitman: 22:49

Okay. Please define mother music for me.

Erin O. White: 22:55

Oh my God. Okay. As a genre, I see mother music as, okay, mother music is actually a different thing for different people. But I would say that if you, if we're gonna, let's, I'll broadly define it first, and then I'll narrowly define it for myself, which is broadly defined. Mother music is the music that when you got into the car, when your mother was driving, she would be playing. Or alternatively, you come home from school and in my time it would be the records were on. I don't know when that was for you, the CD players, whatever your mu your mother has put on in my mother's case, and then I put this in my book. It's Barbara Streisand, it's Doni Mitchell, Stu Collins. It is sometimes Simon and Gar call and it is. These are the songs that when you hear them, you immediately just feel a flood of emotion for your childhood and for your mother. And oftentimes as a bonus, you now listen to the songs and you think a little bit more about your mother as a woman who had some, perhaps some longings, some feelings, right?

Jason Blitman: 23:59

This is very interesting because I didn't really think about it until this moment. My mother music is mostly men.

Erin O. White: 24:07

Great. What is it?

Jason Blitman: 24:08

It is Kenny Loggins.

Erin O. White: 24:10

Oh, I love that. Oh

Jason Blitman: 24:12

But I'm almost bummed that it wasn't Barbara Streisand. Joni Mitchell. There was no like ethereal fabulousness happening in our home. It was all, seventies yacht rock.

Erin O. White: 24:24

That could be, that could be a generational thing, because I'm older than you,

Jason Blitman: 24:28

sure. That's

Erin O. White: 24:29

so my mom's older than you.

Jason Blitman: 24:31

Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Erin O. White: 24:33

Yeah. I thought when I was young, I thought we were related to Barbara Streisand. That's how much Barbara Streisand was in my house. I assumed she was a family member.

Jason Blitman: 24:43

Yeah. I wish I knew her that early.

Erin O. White: 24:46

But when you hear a Kenny Logging song, do you think about your

Jason Blitman: 24:48

A hundred percent.

Erin O. White: 24:50

And it's great. Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 24:52

Yeah. That's

Erin O. White: 24:52

I was trying to also allude to the idea of like mothers of as people who have in our lives and that sometimes we don't, we can never really access our mothers in our lives, even as we get older. But when we have those moments of dipping in, it can be really lovely.

Jason Blitman: 25:09

Do you think that has changed from your mother to you as a mother?

Erin O. White: 25:16

I don't actually, I mean, yes and no. Perhaps generationally it has that mothers are maybe more forthcoming or disclosing to their daughters. I have a very close relationship with my own mother who's quite disclosing. And, but I still feel and I'm very close to my own almost grown daughters. I still feel like a mother is in enigma in so many ways though, it's just, they're just a lot of things you just can't know about them, which is good.

Jason Blitman: 25:41

Yeah, totally good. It's fun for me to think about what my mom was like as a 20

Erin O. White: 25:46

Yeah, Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 25:48

And I sometimes wish for her that she can retap into that,

Erin O. White: 25:52

Yeah, totally. Yeah. I do actually feel like when I do see my mother who likes to think a lot about her sort of twenties and thirties, it's lovely to swatch and to hear her talk about it,'cause it is such an interesting time of life. And so to hear about the things that she was thinking about or interested in.

Jason Blitman: 26:11

Yeah. That's really fun. I yeah. Anyway, mother music stuck out to me. I want you to make a playlist if you haven't

Erin O. White: 26:18

Okay. I will, I should, I have a lot of, I have a lot of Barbara Streisand. I listened to a lot of Barbara Streisand while I was writing this

Jason Blitman: 26:24

yeah. Was there like a song that was on repeat the most?

Erin O. White: 26:27

Oh gosh. I just, I evergreen, I just love just I, the way we were. I'll just go all in. I.

Jason Blitman: 26:35

So I knew who she was. When I was in high school or in college we were offered free tickets to her concert. There was like a limited number and I was like, I know who Barbara Streisand is, but I'm not like a quote unquote fan at that point in my life. I left that arena that night as a changed human.

Erin O. White: 26:57

I believe it.

Jason Blitman: 26:59

Did you listen to her memoir that, listen, of course. I said

Erin O. White: 27:01

Yes, I did. Of course I

Jason Blitman: 27:02

'Cause you have to

Erin O. White: 27:03

All 975,000

Jason Blitman: 27:05

Yes, I did get up to three x speed, but it still sounded normal.

Erin O. White: 27:11

it still sounded great. I also was very high. Wasn't it great when she would give it a little aside where she would just deviate from the text and then just tell us a story.

Jason Blitman: 27:19

it, I would listen to it again, but

Erin O. White: 27:21

I know.

Jason Blitman: 27:22

Who has the

Erin O. White: 27:23

was really, no we even, we are too old for that now. We don't have that kind of time. Yeah. Too much.

Jason Blitman: 27:29

Anyway loved it. Obsessed. I, and I didn't realize how her sort of divaness was earned.

Erin O. White: 27:39

Yeah. She was a worker, wasn't she?

Jason Blitman: 27:43

May we all be as strong.

Erin O. White: 27:45

I know. I know. Also the idea that she had test tinnitus or however you say that, a ringing in her ears all the time.

Jason Blitman: 27:53

I know. Stage

Erin O. White: 27:54

She deserves that. She deserves that mansion, Malibu, or whatever. She has multiple

Jason Blitman: 27:59

I know I'm on board. Okay. I said that this is your debut novel at 52 Girl. How does that feel?

Erin O. White: 28:05

Oh, it feels amazing. I think that a lot of people will read that and think that like I'm like Grandma Moses, like I picked up a paintbrush and started writing. So like at 49, I was just like, you know what I should do? I should write a novel. I just, but you know, it's not that at all. I got my m in my twenties freelancer ghost.

Jason Blitman: 28:29

Yeah.

Erin O. White: 28:30

I've just been working. I don't want you to think I

Jason Blitman: 28:33

No. I don't think that way. You weren't like, I don't know. A baker, and then suddenly you were

Erin O. White: 28:38

true. I would need to be able to say yeah, after a 25 year career in the foreign

Jason Blitman: 28:42

No,

Erin O. White: 28:43

I couldn't say that. Yeah. Not that it was more just like plugging away. Yeah. It happened right at the exactly the right time. I think that the book that I wrote, I wanted so much to.

Jason Blitman: 28:56

Yeah.

Erin O. White: 28:58

Of if we're being realistic about the sorts of books that have been published or accepted or received well into the literary community.

Jason Blitman: 29:08

I'm certainly grateful that it happened when it

Erin O. White: 29:11

me.

Jason Blitman: 29:11

If. You were only given three words to explain like family, what would they be? And they don't have, it doesn't have to be a sentence. What are just three words

Erin O. White: 29:21

Yes. Three words. Oh gosh, that seems okay. Oh my God, what if I'm just like warm, joyful, and smart on the, which I'm not? Three words. You know what I guess I might say is ties that bind, even though those words do go together,

Jason Blitman: 29:38

no, you're

Erin O. White: 29:39

but I do.

Jason Blitman: 29:39

it. It could be whatever. I just didn't want you to feel the pressure to form a

Erin O. White: 29:43

I think that's, I feel like that's what I would say in those three words. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 29:49

that bind. Love.

Erin O. White: 29:50

yeah.

Jason Blitman: 29:51

That was like very teamwork of us. I'm very

Erin O. White: 29:53

That really was, that was really good. Probably gonna use that

Jason Blitman: 29:57

Please do. I'm obsessed.

Erin O. White: 29:59

be like, so I, so if you were to ask me about three words.

Jason Blitman: 30:04

Here's a very succinct, brilliant. Very

Erin O. White: 30:07

Brilliant. Just off the

Jason Blitman: 30:09

Yes, totally off the cuff. Erin o White. I needed to add the in there just

Erin O. White: 30:15

I love

Jason Blitman: 30:15

I don't know why, but I needed to everyone go to Altoa. You could go to the link in the bio. Join the club. This is so special. I'm so excited. Are there parting words that you want to give to the

Erin O. White: 30:29

Oh my gosh. I'm just so excited too. I'm thrilled to put this book in people's hands. Thrilled to put it into the hands of your book club members who I just hope read a story and see themselves reflected back with tons of love

Jason Blitman: 30:42

And if not themselves, seeing a, seeing messy families in ways that are so familiar and yet so different. And I think that's also just really special and really cool. So Erin, congratulations. I'm so

Erin O. White: 30:56

Thank you so.

Jason Blitman: 30:57

and have a great rest of your day.