Bestselling author Allegra Goodman returns to the podcast to discuss ISOLA, a blazing, immersive castaway survival story through the eyes of Marguerite de la Rocque—based on the real story of a young French noblewoman who sails to the new world in 1544. Allegra shares the fascinating 22-year journey of writing this book—from discovering the story during a sleepless road trip with her four young children to finally finding her protagonist’s voice years later. She and Zibby delve into the challenges of writing historical fiction, the universal nature of survival and isolation, and how motherhood shaped Allegra's creative process.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Allegra. Thank you for coming back on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss Isla, your latest novel. Congratulations. Thank you. Please tell listeners the general premise of the book, and then I want to dive into this fascination you had with the story and how it wouldn't let you go.

Allegra: The book is, the novel is based on a true story of a young French noblewoman who sails to the new world in 1544, 1544, I think. And she is marooned on an island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. And there's a little bit known, there were two contemporary accounts of what happened to her, but they conflict with each other.

They know that she was real. They know this happened. So I had a lot of space to imagine, you know, her life there on this island. And I was just fascinated by this whole, this whole scenario. So that's how I started writing this book. 

Zibby: So in the author's note at the end, which I only I wanted to have a whole book of your author's note because it speaks so much to the writing process itself.

But you're like, I was writing Sam in the morning, and then I was like, you're like cheating on Sam the book by trying to write this book. And that you said you found your way in when you finally figured out her voice and how, and that whole book, you know. It is characterized by this, as if you're listening to this woman speak to you, right?

Tell me about that and, and the whole experience and the backstory of this, which is absolutely fascinating. 

Allegra: Well, it's actually kind of a, moms don't have time to read or write type of origin story because I got the idea for this book 22 years ago. I have four children. We were, we drove up from Massachusetts to Canada.

On a road trip, my kids were 10, 7, 3, and 0, like, we literally had a newborn. I am not sure why I agreed to this, it's all very fuzzy in my mind, I think it was some kind of euphoria after birth. And, but, I ended up taking out a whole stack of books for kids about Canadian history, which I thought I would share with my three sons, the three older boys.

And of course, we got up to Canada, and like, nobody was interested in reading those books with me. But I was not getting any sleep because I was nursing the baby all night and I read all of them, you know, these stacks of books that were sort of like why a books about Canadian history or children's books and I stumbled upon this passage about this young woman, Marguerite, who sailed to the new world was marooned and it was literally like in parentheses in an aside.

in the middle of a chapter about Cartier's voyages to New France, which is Canada. And I was like, wait, what, what, you know, I'm sort of, you know, deliriously like sleep deprived with this newborn in my lap, you know, looking at this. And I was thinking, this is such a great thing to write about. This would be such a fun thing to do for a novel.

But the whole idea of writing a novel set in the 16th century stressed me out. 

Zibby: I can't imagine why. 

Allegra: This is like, I am, I was not a historical novelist. I wrote contemporary novels and the idea of doing that kind of research. And, you know, in my sleep deprived state, I sort of put it aside, but I kept, it was always in the back of my head all that time.

And, you know, kids got older, they grew up. And really my youngest was I think a senior in high school. No, she was in college by the time I returned to this idea, but I was still in at that point. I had more time to write and to do research and to read to do all the reading required to, you know, write a book like this, but I was still, you know, wondering how to tell this story so, and I was intimidated by the fact that it was so long ago, and that so little was known about this woman, and I thought, let me just try to write the first sentence, you know, and I got away from my computer and I just had a notebook, and I just started writing by hand, just trying to write the first sentence, which I thought could be in the first person, like Robinson Crusoe type story where she was telling her story. And I just kept writing this first sentence over and over again, until I got to sort of the 20th iteration of it. And I heard her sort of saying, I never knew my mother. She died the night that I was born. So we passed each other in the dark.

And, and, and all of a sudden I heard this woman's voice. And at that point, I, I just had the confidence to keep going as if she was telling me the story and I was transcribing it. Of course, it's more complicated than that because you have to figure out the structure of the book and other issues. But really, that was the key for me just to having the courage to write this book.

Zibby: Do you ever think, like, hearing you say that, I'm like, maybe she really was speaking to you, and maybe this is the universe, and the way that these things work, and that, like, writers, we really are just, like, vehicles for stories that are out there, right? It's like otherworldly. 

Allegra: I mean, there may be something to that, honestly, and there's definitely something to the fact that.

Stories and books have to be written when they're ready to be written, you know, even if I had all the time in the world when I was younger, 22 years ago, I might not have been able to write this novel. I might have need to grow up a lot more and to have experienced a lot more in order to bring that to this book.

So I do, I am kind of a believer that there's a, there's a time, you know, and sometimes it may require some patience and some waiting and maybe doing other things first, but the imagination works in mysterious ways. So, yeah. 

Zibby: You have one scene where, not to give things away or whatever, but where someone is saying, like, I can't sleep without this person.

I've never really been alone. Like, this is the worst feeling. And like, just tapping into that human emotion of anyone who has lost anyone for any reason or is missing someone for any reason. Like, these things transcend time. It's not like people living back then didn't feel love and loss and all the feelings.

Allegra: I totally agree with you, you know, and, and when I heard her speaking, it was sort of, she was a real person, just talking to me like a person, not like a historical figure, or not like somebody who lived hundreds of years ago. And those emotions, people did feel lost, they did fall in love, they did feel betrayed.

Women did struggle just as they do now, worse, in fact, in many ways, you know, and yeah, and that, that moment was very real to me that, that this young woman had, had never, had never been alone. And I was really interested, I'm glad you brought that up because I was really interested in this whole idea of what it was like to be completely isolated.

And actually, I haven't told this to people, but you know, that title is Isola. Which means island in Italian is from an Italian map that they used, but I was really fascinated by that word because it also sounds like I alone, I solo, but in a feminine form. And she has to, she has to experience life without the people that she loves and the people who raised her and the world that she knows.

And somehow come back from that. And so, as a novelist, that was what really, really interested me. 

Zibby: Wow. And they say no man is an island. And yet. 

Allegra: Yet sometimes you are stuck on an island. 

Zibby: Yes. 

Allegra: And you're a woman. 

Zibby: Yes. My gosh, even her voyage there. I'm like, the weevils and, I mean, this is like, whoa, this is not fun.

I'm like, get me off this boat. 

Allegra: No! 

Zibby: Please take me off the boat. 

Allegra: Yeah, get me off the boat. And then she finds out what it's like off the boat, and that's hard. Yeah. It's hard. 

Zibby: Like, maybe the boat wasn't so bad. No. I mean, the power to withstand the most difficult circumstances, I mean, that is what we have to draw on today and every day, right?

We might not be on an island by ourselves, but we can certainly feel that way sometimes. And how do you get through it? 

Allegra: Yeah. Absolutely. What do you draw upon? 

Zibby: What do you draw upon? Oh my gosh. Did you consider ever sort of other viewpoints, third person, like other ways to tell the story or were you just like, no, I'm in, this is, this is it?

Allegra: I was committed to the first person for this one, and I usually write in the third person myself. I think it was partly because I was obsessed with Robinson Crusoe when I was a child. And I had this idea that, you know, he was a man, first of all. He wasn't escaping the kinds of things that she was escaping, you know, when he got to his island.

He was also on a relatively tropical, warm island. You know, one of the big problems he had was the sun was burning his skin all the time, and he made a parasol. And she's on a subarctic island. So You know, I was really, I was really interested in that. I was also really interested in her as a woman. That one of the things she realizes is that she's obviously in great danger on the Island, but she was in danger at home, you know, she was not safe where she was and, and I was interested in exploring that, you know, Robinson Crusoe, when he gets saved, he can go back to being a white male, you know, at home.

Zibby: Oh my gosh. Sam and Marguerite, as you mentioned in your note at the end, are both survivors, right? Why do you think you are drawn to stories of survivors like this? 

Allegra: I think as a novelist, I've always been interested in questions like, sort of, how do you live? What's the best way to live? And, but also more than that sort of why do you live, what, what is it for?

And when you explore somebody trying, struggling to survive in different contexts, you are, it's, it's a way to frame that question in a clear way. You know, at some point, Marguerite says, you know, she, she learned how to survive on that island to a certain extent. You know, she, she could, she learned hunt, she learned to keep warm to sustain herself, but she had, but it was so much work and it was so hard.

Then the question became in isolation, why do you do it? What's the point of it? And I was interested in exploring that question. 

Zibby: Did you ever like put the book down and be like, okay, now I just need to like wrap myself in a blanket and indulge in the creatures of home? Because.. 

Allegra: Yeah, like I felt very lucky.

I mean to have heat. 

Zibby: Yeah. Exactly. 

Allegra: Heat in the house. 

Zibby: Yeah. Like creature. Let's not take anything for granted. 

Allegra: No. No. 

Zibby: So if Marguerite were to meet Sam, what would that, and they were living in the same time, what do you think their conversation would go like? 

Allegra: Ooh. Well, they might have some good talks about climbing rocks.

I think Sam would actually be very impressed with her. I think Sam, I think she, you know, Sam was not a big reader. She's one of those kids that doesn't like to read. And she's always like, why do people read those long books about people who lived a long time ago? And I think that Marguerite, she would have thought like she had credibility.

You know, this is the person who, had to fight, fight her way, and I think, so Sam, I think could have learned from Marguerite. I think Marguerite would have had to catch up a lot to, um, figure out Sam's world, of course. It's many hundreds of years later, but yeah. And they could have talked a little bit about some of the men in their lives, actually.

Zibby: True, yes. Very true. So, you, I mean. Um, one of these books is today. One is so long ago. 

Allegra: Yeah. 

Zibby: Totally different skill sets, recreating worlds versus sort of transcribing our current world. Which are you going to next? Like which are you going to keep, you know, going through different times or a different time altogether?

Or are you just going to let the women kind of find you and speak to you? 

Allegra: All of the above, all of the above. I actually, now that I've written one historical novel, I don't feel that same stress anymore. I feel like. It's like, oh, wait, I love doing research. I love reading for a year, you know, so I have forgotten that about myself.

And so I think I've gotten over that hump of just being completely intimidated, but I'll never stop writing about writing contemporary stories about people who live now either. I mean, one thing you could say is that all novels are historical novels. I remember, you know, if it happened last week, that's history and there are many interpretations.

If you asked your friend what happened last week, she may have a very different idea of that conversation than you do. So that's one way of looking at it. Or, you know, I taught a class where one of my undergraduates said, I want to write a historical novel set in like the mid 2010s. And I was like, okay. 

Zibby: I know, at our publishing house, I say that we don't publish historical fiction, which I say is before 1976, because that's when I was born.

Allegra: Exactly. Exactly. 

Zibby: I'm like, I don't know. We got to cut it off somewhere. 

Allegra: But for this kid, like, you know, 2000 was before she was born, you know.

Zibby: It was so easy. Oh my gosh. I feel so old every day. I

Allegra: know. Totally. And then she was like, could you help me with like some of the details of like time, those times, you know.

Zibby: Oh my gosh. My, my son, I have four kids too, and my youngest son is 10, about to turn 10, and I was putting him to bed and he was like finding the gray hair that the colorist, I guess, missed in trying to like mask the, mask the gray. And, and he was like, you know, like, he's like, you're. You're almost 50 and I'm not like in the double digits yet.

You're getting so old. And I was like, shut up. 

Allegra: Yeah. 

Zibby: Like. 

Allegra: You'll understand when you're older. You'll, you'll. 

Zibby: I know. Like you're lucky to be here. 

What are you talking about? 

Yeah, exactly. 

Allegra: It's going to happen to you too with your kids. 

Zibby: Yeah. God willing. God willing. How do your kids feel about your writing and what, what is your relationship like with them now?

And you know, hearkening back to those early days. 

Allegra: Oh, it's so funny. So my kids think it's really funny that I came up with this idea on that trip, of course. And some of them are too young to remember that trip, you know. My oldest son has read the book and loved it. He's actually an economist. He turned into an economist.

And he's completely fascinated by the business of publishing, which is, as you know, bananas. So I'm like, oh. 

Zibby: If he could just sort it out for us, that would be good. Yeah. 

Allegra: Totally. 

Zibby: Fix this problem. 

Allegra: Yeah. Exactly. So he's an economist, but he reads everything. I will be, I will say, I didn't raise any novelists or any writers per se, fiction writers, but I did raise four readers and he does read everything.

My second son has, the other three haven't read the book yet. And my daughter's really funny. She read Sam and then people said to her, like at a reading I gave, Oh, do you read all of your mother's work? And she said, I only read the books that are dedicated to me. I don't know if she probably won't read this one, but it is going to be published in England and she is actually working in London.

Zibby: Oh. 

Allegra: So I think at that point she might be more motivated because she said, like, I will be your press agent in London. I will bring all my friends if you do an event. So, you know. Oh, well, that's good. So they cheer me on in their way, you know. 

Zibby: That's sweet. Sort of boots on the ground. 

Allegra: Yeah. 

Zibby: By the way, I love on social how you're doing these like Q& A short videos.

Where did that come about? I love it. 

Allegra: Honestly, it came about because sometimes I visit colleges and universities and students will, like, raise their hand and they ask, like, great questions and there's often not time to answer them all. Or I think, oh shoot, I should have said such and such after the event is over.

And so I started collecting questions that the students would ask or that readers sent to me. And, um, just thought I would, you know, post some things when I was in a quiet moment and there weren't other people, you know, waiting. So, so I've enjoyed it. I like, I don't teach very much, but I like talking about literature and talking about craft and, you know, answering those things because it is a mysterious process for a lot of people.

Zibby: Well, I love it. 

Allegra: Thank you. 

Zibby: You know, it's great to have this short, short form sort of answers to questions and Use yourself as a resource. I mean, people are, you know, it's, it's so, it's generous, honestly, just to put it all out there. So that's good. Okay. Any projects coming up we should know about?

Allegra: I actually have, I have a contemporary book about a Jewish American family that's coming out, I think in 2026 after this one.

And I'm really excited about it. Some of, some of that book has been published in the New Yorker and it's about it, and this is very much sort of, of our time, you know, I, years ago, I wrote a book called the family Markowitz, which was a book of interlocked short stories about a Jewish American family. And I wanted to do what a contemporary family, and it's a book and it takes.

It's in the third person and it's from the point of view of the parents, the grandparents, the aunts and uncles, the children. It's those three generations of this Jewish family and it's sort of a, what it's like to live now in, you know, in this world in America. And that's a very Jewish book for those readers who are sort of like, you started out by writing very Jewish fiction and now you're not doing so much, you know, and of course, Isola, there's only one Jewish character in this book in Isola and it is a book of Psalms.

You know, it has a lot of liturgy. That is, of course, Jewish. But this book is really about contemporary Jewish life. So I'm excited about that one, which is to come after, after Yisola. 

Zibby: Oh, can't wait to read that. What's it called? Do you have a title?

Allegra: I am, I'm still working on the title, but I would love to talk to you about it.

Zibby: Okay. We'll make a date for 2026. 

Allegra: Yeah. 

Zibby: I'm like, do I ever make any progress? I'm still sitting here in the same chair talking about it. All the authors like new books. It's like years later. Okay. 

Allegra: Oh my gosh. No, we're so grateful to you. 

Zibby: No, I should like at least move desks. I don't know. But anyway, I get so excited.

I mean, I really am excited to read that book too. So I love the way you write. Anyway, congratulations. Congratulations on Isola. I can't wait for it to be out in the world and all of that. So. Congrats, and I'm so glad.

Allegra: Thanks so much, Zibby. Thanks for your support. 

Zibby: Marguerite found you. All right. 

Allegra: Have a great rest of your day.

Zibby: Thank you. You too. Bye bye.