 Okay, welcome everyone to our latest addition of programming via the virtual playhouse. My name is Dan, I'm the director of development programming for the bed for Playhouse. And we're very grateful to all of you for joining us this evening for what I'm sure is going to be really really great presentation. Hello, very quick housekeeping things for those of you who may still be new to zoom at this point in our social distancing lives. There is a Q&A button, which you can find at the bottom of your screen if you are on a laptop or PC. I believe if you're on a handheld device it's towards the top of your screen. At any point please feel free to post a question. And Elizabeth and Amy are going to talk for a bit and then they will open up the form for questions so please anything you'd like. We ask you refrain from using the chat feature that tends to get a little bit confusing so please post your questions through the Q&A. Just very quickly, as I mentioned this is a virtual playhouse the bed for Playhouse is still going through the effects of social distancing although we do have permission from the governor to reopen and we are targeting this Friday as our reopening date. But if you are so inclined if you enjoy what you see here this evening, please before you shut your devices down consider going to our website which is bedforplayhouse.org. And perhaps making a contribution to help us get back on our feet and back to business as usual as close as possible. We should mention right now we are in the middle of a matching gift. We have an art drive with Arts West Chester so anybody who is a first time donor to the playhouse if you've never given before any amount that you donate gets matched by Arts West Chester up to $1,500. So please consider that you're thinking some support. If you enjoy it. All that being said I want to welcome to the screen. One of our favorite people Elizabeth Weed, who is going to take you the rest of the way. I did. Thank you Dan, and thank you to the Bedford Playhouse for facilitating tonight. And I'm so excited that you'll be opening soon. Yes, finally. And I'm so excited I get to introduce Amy Malloy who's a very dear friend and author that I've had the pleasure of working with for now, coming on six years. Amy is the author of Good Night Beautiful, which we'll be talking about tonight as well as the Perfect Mother, which was an instant New York Times bestseller. She is also the author of several works of nonfiction, including the New York Times bestseller however long the night, and Rose water, which was turned into a feature film written directed by John Stuart. Her books have been translated into more than 25 languages. And she also has a long and very interesting career as a ghost writer. So, I thought it made sense tonight to start with our book, Good Night Beautiful. I'm terrified to talk about this book to anybody who hasn't read it because there are so many spoilers, and I am just very fearful that I'm going to give one away so I'm going to punt this question to you Amy. How is about your book. Well, it's nice to be here. Thank you Bedford Playhouse. I've been doing a bunch of events. But I love Elizabeth and I've been looking forward to this for weeks. So, Good Night Beautiful. It's a psychological thriller. It is about a newlywed couple named Sam and Annie, who meet in New York, have a whirlwind romance, get married after a few months, and then decide to leave the city and move upstate to the country to Sam's hometown, to a great little village in upstate New York and to take care of his mother who's been moved into a long term facility for dementia. And he's a therapist, and he opens a home office and starts a private practice. And, you know, he's he has this reputation as a heartbreaker he thinks he's reformed he's madly in love with his wife. And he opens up his practice and it's filled with, you know, lots of women from town who have heard that the cute, you know, therapist from high school is back. And they all line up to see him and little does he know that in a in the ceiling is event through which every word of his sessions can be heard. And, you know, the question is like if you're in this position and you could hear into someone who loves therapy sessions, would you do it in this case the answer is yes. And listening happens. A cute French girl shows up as a new patient sparks fly between Sam and she, and then they won't say too much but then he tells his wife that he's on his way home one night and he doesn't show up. The second part of the book is kind of about what happened to Sam and as Elizabeth said it's really weird to talk about because that's what the book is about but it's also not at all about the what, you know, it's sort of a lot about other things and assumptions that readers make. It's about, you know, gender and it's, you know, so it's about a lot and it's a hard book to talk about so but we'll do our best. We're going to do our best and I have to say so the book came out on Tuesday. It has gotten just so much praise both from reviewers but also from consumers who are reading it and not that I'm checking our good reads or Amazon's reviews regularly but I am and they're amazing. I would just add if, if for those of you reading and loving it or reading and loving any book posting a review there really does mean the world to authors and to the algorithms that go on and in selling books. The book was finished and edited and put into production our job the publisher's job and the agent's job is to send it out to get blurbs from authors and I just want to take a minute to read a very long blurb that didn't the whole thing did not make it on to the by AJ Finn who wrote the runaway bestseller woman in the window. And he said, a busy psychotherapist, his lonely wife, and in the middle and in their home office a ceiling vent like a radio, tune in, sit back and listen to station after station midlife crises, sexual frustrations, marital woes, you need stop to wouldn't you. You know you would. We live and read in an age where publishers this is a little snarky so we didn't put this on the book but I'm going to be snarky. We live and read in an age where publishers bill every other novel is psychological suspense most of these are neither psychological nor suspenseful. You can't tick both boxes without much finesse and rarely so rarely a writer like Amy Malloy favors us with a thriller like good night beautiful. It's cunning for sure constructed with House of Cards precision. And the story surges forward as though powered by outboard motor, but Malloy Malloy proves particularly skilled in the elusive arts of character and dialogue. Good night beautiful isn't only the most suspenseful novel you'll read this year, it's likely to be the funniest to. I wish that every book and every genre is deeply imagined and fully inhabited as this one. Which brings me to my next question which is, you almost didn't write this book. You almost wrote a different book. And I would love to hear about. Well, I'll set it up for you and just say that. Amy and I started working together. When she wrote her debut novel, The Perfect Mother. And right before that book published we were talking to her fabulous editor Jennifer Barth about a next book and Amy came up with this really great idea called the hiding place and a few pages of it and Harper Collins bought the book and Amy went on her way to write it and then what happened. And then all hell broke this. Yes. So I wrote most of the book. I think we had sold it on 100 pages and so I had like 200 more pages to write and so it was you know I had this outline I was like no problem I can do this and so. So I wrote it but it was always it there was it just wasn't gelling for me and as I got closer to the end you know we were all like it'll work out it'll work out and even with the perfect mother you know there's this big twist that happens at the end of that book that I feel like made that book work and I didn't know until I got there that that was in my head or somewhere. And so I was trusting that this was going to happen with the hiding place and it didn't and it just kept falling short. The past was the same it was a husband and wife they move upstate. He's a therapist. She's upstairs. She listens into his sessions. You know it becomes obsessed with it. And so I think there were two things that were happening one was that it didn't feel like the book was really special. It felt sort of like wrote and you know it was like would have been one of a million books sort of. The thing that was happening was that the wife in the book was was unlike Annie in good night beautiful who's very confident and like pretty self assured this wife was sort of like is she crazy is she not crazy can we believe her can we not believe her. And me too was happening at the time. And you know I kept on I was reading the stories and watching this movement happening. And then I was returning to my work and writing about a woman who we didn't know if we should take her for her word. She was really unsettling to me and like sitting very wrong. And so there was one day, June 5 that I had this idea pop into my head that was about different characters which eventually became good night beautiful. And the premise was the same you know it's still a husband and wife move upstate and listening in on a therapy session, but every single character was completely different. And I was thinking like, oh shit, this is, can I say shit, but like, oh shit, this is, you know, this is, this is a better idea. And I think I can make this one work and I think it would be a, like a better book. And so I remember, I email you at 10 in the morning and I was like, hey, you know just like hypothetically speaking, if one sells a book, and there, we were three weeks away from the deadline. There was like a marketing plan. We had sold the movie rights to the girl on the train team. And I was like, hypothetically, let's pretend that I like have an idea for like a better way to tell this story. But it includes maybe like possibly throwing away the whole thing and starting over. And then, you know, and then I was like, oh, it's fine. It's going to go away. This is going to go away. And then by noon, I think I was like texting you and I was like, Hey, just maybe check your email. And then like at three, I was like, we need to talk. This is a serious problem. And you were like, and I just happened to have my husband was taking the kids away for the weekend so I could finish the hiding place. And I had this weekend retreat planned and you were like, take a deep breath, write a few pages, see what's there and let's talk. And so on Sunday, I think I had like 75 pages of the new this new idea. You read it right away, and you call Jennifer our editor. And by Monday, we were like sitting at lunch in a restaurant in New York. I know back when we went to restaurants and Jennifer jokes that we ambushed her at that lunch but we really were so nervous that she would say no that we thought if we told her in person it would work out better for everybody and she was great but we were so laughable and so smart and got it and gave you that extra time. Yeah, so right. A whole year to like read, you know rewrite it but it meant I had to like throw away 290 pages work and sort of start over. Yeah, which I don't recommend doing. And it's interesting hearing you talk about, I know, I know that but I'd forgotten that and how the sort of me to movement was just in your head and, and you just were like I can't write this book anymore. Your first book the perfect mother I think both of your novels do something similar that I really appreciate. It's not just propulsively readable you just zip zip zip from a plot point of view you just want to get to the end and figure out the twists and the turns. But there's also this these themes going on beneath the surface, again without giving too much away with good night beautiful there you know you sort of delve into this idea of male toxicity and sort of how we raise boys. And another for those of you haven't read it some really good book. It takes place in Brooklyn, it's a bunch of new mom friends who sort of met online, and are really meeting for the first time in the park and talking about sleep training and all those things you talk about when you have a baby that I can't remember. And very early on in the book, one of the babies is taken. So on one level it's like who took this baby. His name was Midas because this was when she was living in Brooklyn and you needed a Brooklyn name, who took Midas and but on another level. It's about this sense of being a perfect mother of having your career having this baby always looking fine losing the way and you really like delved into it through these moms who were really struggling in this new time and it you know it was like it was hitting you over the head but I guess my question is, what comes first for you when when you're writing a book is it, is it, is it the plot and the twists or is it like here's what I want to get in. That's interesting. I mean, I feel like, much like having a newborn, you completely forget what happened, you know, when you're writing a book so I know for this, an idea that we're kind of, we're batting around right now for like a for another year or more it's definitely like it's it's the message and it's you know the thing that like it's at the crux of it and it's like how which in this case is sort of, you know, more about like the rise of the alt right in this country and the impact that that's having just on, you know, everything and the tie into reality television, you know and so that's the thing that I want to explore and so I think it's, it's, and it was the same thing with the perfect mother you know I was probably talked about all this but you know I wanted to write about new motherhood and I was reading like Jenny of all like department of speculation and like this book 11 hours by Pamela Aaron's which is about like it's just the 11 hours of women's labor, and they were these like really beautiful books about motherhood and I was like, I think after having my second I was like I would like to try this I would like to try fiction I have no idea what I'm doing but I would like to give it, give it a shot and I just didn't feel like I was like, I wasn't there yet as a writer to try and attempt something that was like very poetic and not that writing suspense I think is easier but it comes more naturally to me and so you know I think it was like fine once I read gone girl in the middle of this I was like oh maybe this is my way into writing about motherhood is like to do something page attorney and suspenseful you know and so I do think it's like that underneath part that comes first for me. You did it very well. I've actually I wanted to go back to the beginning of your writing trajectory but that's actually a good point to jump in because you had a different agent for your nonfiction and you're also writing well actually no I let me go back to the beginning because I actually do have I don't actually know the answer to this question but I mean, you've been writing a lot of books and you've been writing for a long time but did you grow up always thinking you wanted to be a writer where you, you know Stephen King writing stories and selling them to your friends on the playground kind of thing, or what was that like moment where you're like, yes, I want because you've written now you're writing novels like what was that moment for you or was there one. I mean I think it's when we moved recently and so I like have this box of journals that I knew that where they were in my apartment and then I had to put them in a box and now like I've known where the boxes. And just recently I've started to be like stick like a toe into them and be like you know, let me just like open a page and let me just I'm a little I'm terrified of reading them. The same thing I don't want to read any of it it's just cringy cringy as my 12. Yeah. And what am I afraid of I think I'm afraid of that I'm just going to be complaining about the same stuff now that I was complaining about 18. But I mean what I found in this is that everything I was writing was like about how much I wanted to be a writer, and how I had no idea. I mean it was like literally like saying like I want to be like I don't know what's more like it was just so out of reach I didn't know writer. You know, I like, I got my master's in urban planning, you know, like, like it was just, it was, but there was this thing inside of me, and it was like, now that I'm older, you know, it was like turning 30 it was like this now or never moment I think where, you know, I was like, I was trying to write a screenplay for a while with a friend and like I attempted a novel which I actually still have. And it's kind of sad because, like, I just wish that I had found a way to be like, oh I can I should give this, here's how you do it, you know, and like now I feel like writers are very accessible to readers, like very accessible. I can email you and tell you about the swear word in your book that they don't like. But, you know, like at the time there was no way to kind of figure out how do you, how do you publish something. And so, I did also realize in this journal excavations that as soon as I started to write, I stopped journaling, like there was nothing else that I kind of needed to work out I think because it was, it was like 15 years of trying to figure out like, how do you do this and what if I do it and how sad will I be if I never do it and you know and so I think for me it was just the thing of like, I have to, I have to figure a way to do this. Do it. And yeah, and you made it work so you wrote a number of nonfiction books which I mentioned earlier and you also had, I mean I'm calling it like a side gig it's really wasn't a side gig but you are also working with this lawyer in Washington Bob Barnett who represents all the big political politicians and does all of their books and he set you up on multiple ghost writing gigs. I wonder if you tell the audience about the one you recently did not get. Um, ghost writing is this weird thing that exists that I think like is sort of the secret of publishing that most people don't know about but it's basically that if you are a famous person and you are would like to write what usually is a memoir. You hire somebody who writes it for you, I mean, you know in close collaboration like that, the ghostwriter has to get the story from you. And then they write the book and then they sort of put their name on it and say that they wrote it. And so that was my job for, I don't know, 12 years or something. And, and I started to, so Bob Barnett is this, he is what Elizabeth said he's his attorney in DC he but he's like he was he was Barack Obama's. I mean he basically serves as their agent so if you have a big, if you want a big book till you go to him and so it was like Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and like, you know lots of Republicans too. So he had sort of he was very helpful to me throughout my career where he I was on his list of people so he would call me and be like here's these jobs and I mean I had the best I had like the most interesting interviews like I interviewed for Bon Jovi's job and like you know I didn't get that and like Amanda Knox and that which was a really big book and I didn't get that one either. And so I had decided that I was not that I really that I wanted to be done with ghost writing and you know it was like 12 years I had done a bunch of books and I wanted to like do something else. But every time Bob Barnett called I would like basically do whatever he asked me to do because in my head I was like someday Michelle Obama is going to sell a memoir and she's going to need a writer. And Bob Barnett is going to be the person that she goes to to sell the book and then maybe just maybe I could like beg him to like, you know talk to me about this book. So it was, oh my god how do I keep this story short. But so I, so I did 12 years ago is writing and then I was like okay I'm going to finally try fiction. So I try I write the perfect mother. I get you as an agent which was like way more than I ever thought was going to happen and then you sell the book and there was, you know there was interest in it which was nothing that I ever imagined. Oh my gosh, finally like I'm done with ghost writing and now this is the path and so I go out to lunch with Jennifer Barth, the editor at Harper who bought our book and I was, and she had known me a little bit for my ghost writing days and I said to her you know like, I said a ghost writing is over but in my head I always have this thing of like, you know the only person that I would ever go back to ghost writing for is if like Michelle Obama ever wanted me to write her book and it was like haha like she would never like she wouldn't. My friend says oh so you know that Michelle Obama like sold her book last week to you know random house or whoever it was and I was like no I had no idea. And so I go home and I say to my husband I was like, I'm not going to call Bob Burnett about the Michelle Obama book right like I'm just it's stupid like she would never want me anyway like that's way out of my league. And so but Friday night I have to email him and I was like I heard Michelle Obama, you know, who is it going to be her writer and he writes back and he says she's going to do it herself and she has somebody who's going to help and I was like okay good like as if you know but I was like I'm going to pass the hook I can like move on forever and not worry about ghost writing and then on Monday Bob Burnett calls and he was like, okay, I got I got Michelle do great and talk to you like you have to be in DC tomorrow. And I was like, what, and I was like I have great roots like what am I going to wear like it was just this like, so I go to DC. And I like go to the secret place that is now like their foundation. But they had just like they had just moved in like the day before. And I'm like, oh my God I'm meeting with Michelle Obama about you know writing her book and I get led up into this reception area that's completely empty. And it's just like a guy standing there by the door and I'm like, are you like the receptionist and he was like no I'm the Secret Service. And I was like, I'm sorry. And I was like okay I'll just like sit here and wait I guess to meet Michelle Obama. You know and so on the coffee table, it was like, right when the story come out that Donald Trump likes had said that like Obama was tapping his phones and spying on him so it's like, you know all she turned on the Washington post it's all like, Trump is buying, you know, says that Obama is buying on him. And I was so nervous and I have worse. I don't normally get nervous which is I think partly why I can do these ghost writing jobs because like, I don't really care that much. But I'm waiting for I'm waiting for and you know and then, like the door opens from the hall and who walks in but Barack Obama, and like it's just me to sitting by myself like, you know and he sees me and I was like, he's so cute and I just went on and I stand up and I was like, Hello, Mr. President, you know, like I was in the West Wing or something. And so he was like, Oh, you're Amy like you're here to, you know, talk to my wife and I was like, yeah, it was, it was crazy. But so then, but I then when she walks down the hall I was even more like, you know, like, I can't believe that this is really like this has happened. And I didn't get the book, which actually probably turned out to be like, okay. You know, like your dream at the same time I was like, but you have this other dream and we want to keep you on. You did leave and you were like, I feel like she's my best friend. I remember I called you on the train back and I was like, I don't even really want to write her book but like, can we go get our nails done like is there a way to negotiate like she like the three of us maybe go get our nails done together or something. Yeah, so it was like that was it that was the end of this like ghost writing thing for me that had been a 12 year career and it was a great way to kind of say goodbye to it. Yeah. Right and he's never going to ask you again because who does he ask from there, but I love sort of your transition from, you know, from the nonfiction side to the fiction side because you needed you had a nonfiction agent and you needed an agent who specialized in fiction and you had had one last, correct me if I'm wrong you'd sort of agreed to one last ghost writing gig, the kind of paid you enough money to sort of give yourself a year to write the perfect mother do I have that right. I mean, it's more that I did one ghost writing gig, and for a political person that ended up. I felt regretful about because I feel like this person ended up having like, like when Trump came it like it was just like I was like, oh, and so in order to I think to like feel okay about having that one job I said to, like my husband like I need to take this money in a useful way and so I was like, I'm not going to take another ghost writing job for one year and I'm going to take that that money and I'm going to use it as a salary and my kids were I think one and two at the time. You know, and so I was like, we're going to hire babysitter we're going to figure out a schedule like I'm going to work as many hours as everybody else is working in this house and like I'm going to try and and I'm going to write a novel and I'm going to give it a year to do it. And it was funny because I that was like January fifth, and then you sold the book on like, like January third or something so it was like just under a year. So, I just have to pipe in this might not be interesting to anybody but me but Amy thought it was a good idea that like send her book out to agents like December 20. And I got it actually came to my colleague Julie bear who passed it to me she's like I think this is actually better fit for you and I. Authors send sort of 15 pages in a query letter and I read the 15 pages I was like I need to read the rest and Amy's like, Okay, great but like, you know three agents want to have you know I was too slow three agents already have offered representation and I was like no problem we were flying down to Florida and I just remember just zipping through the book and like throwing candy and snacks at my kids and either side like don't talk to me and like we land. And I was like, I love it. Can we talk and you're like yes now like 12 agents want the book. I remember be like this is not going to happen talking to you down and from Bureau Beach and I don't know why I just it makes me laugh but I asked you to come into the office and have a meeting. And I, you know I told my colleagues I'm like, you know I really want to sign this author I love the per work. And you came in I think you just had a day of talking to agents, and you're honestly kind of low energy and you left and they were like, honestly, you didn't get her like that was a bomb, and I thought oh well, you win some you lose some. But I think you were just exhausted. So thank you for. I love the sushi you're forgetting the part that so you take me out for sushi, as you have learned that when I get taken out for sushi, I over to sushi and we get like shamed by the waiters are like that's a lot of sushi you're ordering and we're like we know they're like no no it's a lot. Okay, we can eat a lot of sushi have gotten sushi shame and so I think I just had had too much too much. I was like, she's taking me up to like this great sushi place I'm going to eat too much sushi and then I went back to the office. And I don't know if I was like expecting that everybody's like, it was really nice and I was like, I mean so much sushi. But no I knew right away. It was a mercury overload. I do want to open it up we would love to open up to questions. There's a Q&A in the bottom corner if anybody wants to answer questions I do see an anonymous attendee said his mommy a good agent. That's either your kid or a boyfriend. So that off things we look at and Jillian. Thank you Jillian. So yes, don't be shy. I also see that are our Bedford own Julie Cooper is in the audience and Julie really came to our rescue she's thanked along with Whitney Brown another Bedford friend. And for those of you haven't read the book. It's like this house of cards when you're just trying to make sure everything's lining up and all the twists are landing and it's also not confusing and I feel like we taxed everybody at our agency everybody at Harper Collins, and we were like we need other reads and so Whitney and Julie very kindly their big readers offered to read the book. You know I think they spotted some things that weren't working and that was that was actually really helpful. Yeah that was the tricky thing about this book. You know was that I had to have a lot of early readers because there's things that you can like you just don't want to give away and one slip can kind of do it and so you know it's hard because it would be like to have this discussion with people after they read the book, because there's, you know, there's just like so much that you can't talk about. shy. Spoiler questions for those of you. Are you there Elizabeth is freezing. Yep she froze a little bit. But I have a question. I mean I can you can you can you when you when you sit down to to write how do you. How do you plot out the story do you do like like index cards and make an outline do you do like how do you keep every how to keep all the balls in the air that you need to tie up at the end. Well I'm like what do I need to do in order to throw this book away in one year and start over. Yeah I mean what I, with the last book, I didn't do an outline which I think is probably why I got into so much trouble in the beginning, and so I have this book that I'm working on now. So I just wrote you know but like eventually like if you read this book you'll see like the plot is pretty complicated and there's a lot to keep track of. Oh good are you there. You're back. She's back. Okay. You know so was eventually I had I had like a very complicated index card board in the hallway of our apartment and so you know like my kids ended up doing their own wall of like index cards and then eventually just like writing on the wall so by the end of it it was just like it was a complete mess. But for this book that I'm working on now or at least thinking about like I have a promise myself like nothing I'm not writing a word until I have like at least a 40 page outline, because I don't want to have that experience again of like realizing that it's not going to work or. You know that it's all going to fall short in the end and so I'm trying to to avoid that. I got off for a minute was that on your next book and Well you had talked to I mean I I feel I feel for authors I've been Amy's done about 20 of these zooms already and you make it look like you're talking about the book for the first time. So I know you've been asked that a lot of sort of what the what the next book is. Would you say the first book was harder or the second book is like really hard you know as you know actually it's funny I did not mean to do this but this is like this is the cup that you sent me in the middle of writing it. That says I'll calm you tomorrow. Because you had texted me one point are you doing and I'm like, you know I'm fine you're like you know do you need to talk and I'm like no I'm cool and then you're like okay I'll calm you tomorrow and I was like. Freudian flip. That's probably what she meant, and then she put it on a mug and send it to me which is sweet. I don't know why that made me laugh so hard because I knew you needed calming down and but I do need to tell you this story. That picture Oh this is a good story Amy we Amy's first book The Perfect Mother was optioned by Carrie Washington, who sort of six months after that was in a play on Broadway and amazing play and she did not invite me she invited Amy and Amy was like, can I bring my agent which was awesome and we went to the play and got to meet her afterwards and we're like. Okay, cool, but she was awesome and lovely and we kind of, it was a really intense play that we kind of couldn't believe I mean she's crying at the characters crying at the end of it and then later she's like. They made it to a show. Right like what what was it called the something son, I know. Yeah, right. So that was. That was really fun, and that belonged on your belong down your mug. We're very uncool about it, you know, we're like, there's like the back door that you go in at the end of the play when everybody's like waiting outside for the autograph and we're like, we're just doing it. Exactly. And Jillian has a question. If you had had to ghost another book, who would you want to write for. Um, I would want to write for President Kamala Harris. And that is the next, the next book that I will agree to ghost right. There you go. Well, Bob Barnett might might call you for that you never know. Good. It is a funny time to be promoting a book because I feel like, you know, with the election like two hours away or something. But there's so, there's so much to compete with and it's interesting a lot of a lot of the discussion sort of, you know, kind of turn political with these. Yeah, no, and it's hard, right. It's hard not it's hard not to. And I just sort of, even on my side, I sort of feel paralyzed. Do I, you know, I have this amazing debut that I'm about to send out and I'm like, maybe I should wait because, you know, the elections two weeks away and everyone's distracted but I actually would say now is the time I think I mean I've had so many friends ask me what can I read because they just don't want to they just need a break from the news they want that escape so yeah. I did have a friend tell me to say this so I'm not just, you know, pushing pushing books but this is a really good book and Christmas and the holidays are upon us so order it now because then you'll have it ready when it comes time to give to give presents. I'm always way behind the eight ball on that so. You know, the oblong books in Millerton, New York. Yeah, New York. They have signed copies. So if you wanted to get a signed copy you can order from oblong books we're doing an event there tomorrow night. Yeah, that's a really good bookstore and I had a question for you this is what somebody has been saying like oh I want to hear from Elizabeth but so like what is it like when you because you are this incredibly like, you know, world famous and everybody wants you to work with you so what is it like when you when you do you go to the slush pile and like what is it. Yes, about like what is it in the slush pile that will get your attention. So I'm, I, a lot of my colleagues make fun of me because I read it like voraciously. I, you know, I if I could figure that out and articulate it better on my bio I'd probably have a better strike ratio. But you know I love anything that feels fresh that you know surprises me and I think you know when your book came along I was like this feels different it feels elevated it feels like something I haven't I haven't read before. I love a good plot so that's probably why I love thrillers I mean I don't get me wrong I love beautiful language to but I am probably not the agents that's going to take on the very very literary just, you know, voice driven it has to have. It has to turn the page for me. Even a slush pile like what is I mean right like nobody I didn't know Julie when I pitched her you know so that was like what is the slush pile just like completely people with no connection. Yeah, I mean I, but you had in that case, some publisher that you had worked with had given you some names and that's sure you were going on that but if you you know and in that case you're, you were already a step ahead right because you knew in the in the industry. But I mean I would say now it more than ever it's really easy to find an agent because you read the books that you think your book is similar to you read the acknowledgement pages you figure out who the agent is you can go on their website and they're available there and you can see what they want what they don't want what they've worked on. I mean it is a little tricky because you know maybe I don't want to turn more thrillers now because I have have you in my life doing I mean I have you know I so then it switches and I do a lot of historical fiction and I get a lot of queries for that but that isn't necessarily something I want to do more of because I have the authors that I work with. So I mean it was it was sort of you and I connected, not that way right, but that was Julie got a really nice pair of shoes out of out of your book sale because we don't believe in commission sharing on that kind of thing but I was like you're going to roll nice pair of shoes for that so that's that's how we roll at the book group. We have one more question. Oh Julie Cooper just asked. Do you expect the plot of your next book to change depending on the outcome of the election. Good question. I don't know. I mean no because I can't write my book. If the question goes a certain way like the only the only way. I don't care. I'm just going to talk about it, but like the only way that I can write this book is if Trump doesn't get reelected, because it's a it's like it's a pretty dark look at I think the forces that have brought about this moment in you know and these like, you know you see it all you're seeing it a lot more as we lead up to the election like that you know the the stoking of racial division and you know all the the the violence that were possibly prepared for and you know and what I'm really super as as you know like it was like five months ago and not that I'm saying I'm like prescient Prussian, but like called you and I was like you know I can on, you know and I was like I really am super into Q and not like as a member but like as a server. And you know and it was like, I have I have been doing these very deep dives into this sort of conspiratorial mindset that you know has just blossomed in a way that has surprised me even though I've been following it pretty closely. You know and now there's a bunch of people running for for for Congress from whatever they're you know from affiliated with them. So I've been like spending a lot of times listening to like Alex Jones's podcast info wars and you know watching Tucker Carl Carlson and like, I mean if I don't win the Pulitzer for this book like it forget it like I'm done I'm done writing against it's really hard work to spending time with this. What. No I was going to say that there's another question that's in that vein what area subjects did you have to research for your new book do you front load your research ahead of your writing and it sounds like. Yes, I mean this one feels much more. You know I wrote nonfiction for so long and I think that there's a part of me that like I will always be like have a love affair with narrative nonfiction. Right, you know I read it I'm reading a lot of it and so I think that this book might. Mel the two of them that it'll be you know it'll be the it'll I haven't been drawing on on like I haven't drawn on current events like my daughter did not get kidnapped in Brooklyn and I was like let me you know right about this. But so yeah, and you know so I but if if Trump gets reelected. And who knows what's gonna happen like I can't write this book like I can only. Look at it like this like shoe sort of you know that that didn't happen. So now I can explore, because I think these things whatever happens with this election, those, that part of society and American culture has been exposed, and we can't, you know just if if we have a new president it's not going to it's not going to go away. It's like the stuff that's out there is it's like it's intense you know and it's very misogynistic and it's very racist and a lot of it is overt and. You know, and I just feel drawn to kind of like I really want to lift up these rocks and try and see like what it is that caused all this to happen. But it's, I don't know why I don't even know. Yeah, that makes sense. I think we're almost out of time but I wanted to ask you one more question because it is sort of percolating right now. Do you think, is there a chance good night beautiful might be a movie and might you be involved in that in some way or another. I don't know. Do you think that good night beautiful. I do, I do amy's and talks with a number of people who want to buy the film rights and they want me because of the house of cards slide of hand stuff happening in the book. A lot of people did not know how to put it on, put it on film but you sort of crack that code and I think a lot of people are really interested in it and interested in your take. Well, you've been, I mean, you have been integral to this but you know we've, Elizabeth and I have like sort of have these like, let's, you know, we both don't live in the city. And so we're like, let's meet on the found and take these walks in the country and kind of like really hash out how we would, how this would work on film and I think we, I think we figured it out. It's a hard book to, you know, it's funny there's a friend of mine who's reading it and she's she's still in part one the book is in three parts and she's in part one I saw yesterday and she's like this is going to be such a great movie. It's like this is such a movie and I'm like, yeah, you know, it's keep going. Yeah, it's like it's a little hard to like it eventually it's like it's a little hard to adapt and she was like no won't be like you just have to do it and I was like, I was, and then finally I was like you need to read by this page by Monday so you could help me brainstorm how to do this. But it is, I hope so I would love I think it'd be a super fun thing to try and make happen. I mean, for Barra who I don't know if she's still here she was she was integral your editor was also integral and sort of saying we I think I think we could crack this too and I feel like. Oh, that's right. Yeah, I feel like that was really helpful because a lot of people in Hollywood at first kind of pushed away from it but now they're now they're really into it which is really exciting. Yeah, we'll see. Anyway, don't have any other questions. We were told that we had 45 minutes but I don't want to keep anybody I know it's late and if you want to keep going kids. I know I know if you love kids to, you know, put. Well listen if it does get made into a movie. You can commit right now to coming and premiering it at the playhouse and coming to talk about it. Done. Done and done her. Anybody who wants to if anybody knows anyone who missed this and wanted to participate. There is going to be a recording that'll be on the playhouse YouTube channel in a couple days. So please feel free to share that link. We'll circulate that to everybody, but yeah that'd be great. We'd love to show that. We're going to have, we decided we're going to cast it with Ryan Reynolds and Blake lively who I understand are local anyway because they are local. Zoom at the moment they don't know they're going to star in it, but they will soon. But because of COVID they could actually feel they could be so many and we wouldn't have to. We wouldn't have to spend money on testing and all that. Exactly. Very easy. It definitely be your upstate fictional town that you set the book in. It's not far from getting zoom bombs. So on that note. Thank you everybody. Thank you. Thank you, Dan. Thanks. Great job, Bobby. Great job, Amy. All right, bye. Bye.