Author Amy Blumenfeld returns to the podcast to discuss her new novel, SUCH GOOD PEOPLE, a masterfully crafted and nuanced story about a decades-long friendship tested by loyalty, justice, and the ripple effects of one life-altering decision. Amy shares her inspiration for this novel, from growing up with a criminal court judge father to uncovering story ideas in unlikely places (like a halfway house newsletter). She explores themes of friendship, moral ambiguity, journalism, and hidden truths in marriage, while also discussing her contributions to ON BEING JEWISH NOW, the anthology edited by Zibby, and her experiences navigating the publishing world as a Jewish writer today.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome Amy. Thanks for coming back on Totally Booked with Zibby to talk about Such Good People, your second novel. So exciting. 

Amy: It is my pleasure and honor to be here. Thanks for having me. 

Zibby: We were just starting to reminisce, but I made you wait so we could talk about it in front of other people because why waste such good material stuff.

But you were here in person for the cast in 2018, which is the year I started doing this and oh my gosh, so much has changed. 

Amy: It feels like yesterday, but so much has changed, so it's uh, it's a wild ride. 

Zibby: Gosh, yet I am still here at my desk in the exact same spot, so you know, please, or whatever. Oh my gosh.

Okay. Well first of all, thank you for including me in your acknowledgements of this book. That was very touching. Thank you. Tell listeners what the book is about, please.

Amy: As the title suggests, uh, this is a character driven novel. It's about two working class, uh, kids from, uh, Brooklyn, and it's really a story about friendship.

It's about the links you go to for the people you love, but at its very core and its heart. It's about these two kids, a boy and a girl who were best friends growing up in Brooklyn. Think of like the Wonder Years, Winnie Cooper and Kevin Arnold. Sort of like that. 

Zibby: A picture of them showed up on my Instagram feed literally last night, like Winnie's, um, oh, really?

Like her own pictures of it. 

Amy: Oh, that's funny. 

Zibby: I don't know. Instagram must have read your mind that you were gonna come on my show and talk about it. But anyway, keep going. 

Amy: So anyway, they meet as kids in a playground in Midwood, Brooklyn, and very quickly they become best of friends. Their families become extended families, and then when they are ready for college, she goes off to a very elite private school and he is the son of an apartment building super. And he stays home to help his dad and he goes to community college. The second semester of their freshman year, she invites him, he, she happens to be in the city on the upper West side for a meeting with her newspaper club from college.

She invites him to come and hang out with her and he, when he arrives at this venue, he sees her in the back corner of the bar with a man who is clearly inebriated and very handsy, and she looks very uncomfortable with her back pre pressed up against the wall. And he goes in very gracefully and tries to, you know, extricate her from the SIM situation.

And one thing leads to another. They leave and the next day, Rudy is arrested. A week later, April is expelled from her elite college shortly thereafter. He is sentenced to 15 years in prison and after that, she meets an attorney and ends up falling in love, moving to Chicago, having three beautiful kids, a wonderful career, a beautiful community, and a great life.

Shortly before the 15 years he is up for parole, gets an early release and the headlines explode about his release, about her background, and at that time, her husband is running for office in Chicago. All of this impacts her kids. Her life, her friends, her husband's career, her marriage. And she is really torn between being there for her best friend who sacrificed everything for her and this beautiful life that she has created for herself.

So it's really about the, you know, these divided loyalties that so many of us have, the blurred lines between right and wrong, those gray areas in life that we all struggle with because not everything is black and white. And, and it's also about. Journalism. I started out as a journalist and a fact checker was my first job.

And there's a, you know, a, a main character in this book who, um, is a reporter and she, well, I don't wanna ruin anything, but she plays a major part in this. And so it's also about fact checking and journalism and, and the truth emerging. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh. Wow. That's a great pitch by the way. That was. Very well done included.

Thank you. All the things. Love it. You start the book with a note to your parents, or maybe it's at the back, but anyway, there's a note about your parents and what they've given you and your dad's judge. Ship is that if, if that's even how you say it and how that informs right and wrong and justice and what that means, and your mother's sort of unending compassion and encouraging you to look.

And you have this image of yourself as a little girl, like always looking at the families of the accused, right or wrong, no matter which side. Having compassion for them while someone they love is going through this. Talk a little bit about that and how your own experience informed the whole, the whole narrative.

Amy: I grew up in a home with the scales of justice and justice. Justice shall you pursue framed in our living room wall. And it was very much a fabric of the values of my family. Um, there are many members of my family who are attorneys and it was just very much a part of our value system. Um, when I was young, my dad was a public defender and he would bring, a lot of his colleagues would come to our house and sit around the dining room table and discuss their cases and plot out their defense.

And I remember like listening to the jargon and having no clue what they were talking about, but like those words. Seeped into my brain. And then when I was in seventh grade, my dad, uh, became a judge, a criminal court judge, and I would go to work with my dad and sit on the bench with him. And so I, it was like, it was incredible.

It was like watching a play, you know, these, and I paid attention as we all writers do to like, you know, the body language and the way people act and, and the, and the words that were coming out. And so I'd watch the prosecutor, I'd watch the defense attorneys, but what really stuck with me. Whereas in my line of sight while I was sitting next to my dad on the bench were the pews, the people in the audience section.

And I didn't know if those people were on the side of the defense or if they were on the side of the prosecution. But you're, when you're in arraignments, that's when somebody's first been arrested and it's, you know, it's really scary. You're in shock. You have no idea what's gonna happen with your loved one or what's gonna happen with the case.

So I'm looking at these people and I have no idea what's going through their minds and their backstories and you know why they're even there. And so that has, that stuck with me throughout the years. And so when I was done with the cast and I was thinking about my next book, I knew that I wanted to do something that was re related to the criminal justice system. I didn't go to law school. I'm not planning to go to law school. It's not my thing. However, I wanted it similar to the way I did the cast, which was a, was a, a, a medical story. At the heart of it, it was about a child who had been sick and how that illness as a patient rip had a ripple effect on all of the loved ones around that patient and how it changed their lives in terms of their faith, their religious practice.

Their marriage, their priorities, their friendships, and I wanted to take that model and put it into the criminal justice system and not talk about social justice in a high level. But I wanted to bring it down and cull it down to the very basic level, which was friendships and family. And so in a, in, in a, in a way, it's like the cast in, in terms of that ripple effect of one, one experience on all other people.

So that was my inspiration, was sitting, you know, growing up around my dad, watching the people in the pews. And then, like I said, while I was thinking about what to write about, around the time the cast came out, one of my dad's friends was involved with a halfway house on an administrative level, and we were invited to a gala.

We were not able to go, but we started getting their newsletters. So I actually read some of the newsletters. And in one of the newsletters, they were profiling some of the teachers who were helping out and working at this h halfway house helping people reenter society. And there was a couple of the teachers who had their own experience in the criminal justice system being incarcerated.

And one of the teachers happened to be someone who had gone to an Ivy League institution who in her senior year had some problems and ended up getting expelled and her life exploded and she, you know, she reformed and everything was okay and she ended up teaching at this place. But I was like, wow, that's interesting.

So that's how I got the idea for a teacher. And then I just created it and ran with the rest of it. And the first character I created was April and she was a teacher and then I, you know, from there I moved over to her best friend and made Rudy the one who had the problem. 

Zibby: Wow. I mean, I usually throw the newsletters away, unopened, and to think too, of all the potential novels that are, that's exactly the trash.

This is a huge advertisement for opening reading the mail. 

Amy: The mail mail. Right, exactly. Normally I wouldn't, but it just, just happened that day. I was flipping. I was like, wow, that's really interesting. 

Zibby: Some might say it was, you know? Yeah. 

Amy: Yeah. 

Zibby: It's  Bashared. Oh my gosh. Well that is a really cool story.

Speaking of Bashared, actually, so you are one of the contributors to on being Jewish now. Thank you so very much for that. Just on the notion on the subject, sorry, of Judaism in general and being a Jewish writer today, how has this been for you? You have a new book coming out, you've been touring with, I'm Being Jewish Now.

A bit like how are you feeling about the whole environment? 

Amy: Well, you know, my last book came out in 2018, so it's been quite a while. You know, it's been several years and so I don't know how that's gonna impact me being a Jewish writer now with this new book. We shall see. But it has been an absolute pleasure to be a part of this process.

You know, you really created a movement and I've gained so many friends through participating in this book. I've loved being a part of it. You know, I'm not typically a very loud, outspoken person, but I can do that through writing and, and through these book events, through On Being Jewish Now I feel like I'm in some small way making a difference and speaking to people, and it's a tribute to you and thank you for creating that.

Zibby: Thank you. That was not designed to be.. 

Amy: I know, I know. 

Zibby: But self-serving. But it's, I'm curious. Thank you. I was actually, I was just flipping through the Jewish Book Council like book of all the books coming out who are authors on tour, and I saw your book in there and I was just like, wow, I can't believe it.

Like there's so many, there's so many Jewish book Jewish authors on tour, like everybody's talking about like, you know, so many people are too scared to publish or too scared to write, or is this environment too difficult at the current time, but this big volume of books, the directory of Jewish books, so to speak.

Is that right? Speaking differently? 

Amy: I mean, it also is sort of making me think, you know, the characters in this book and such good people are not outwardly Jewish. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Amy: And they were in my first book in the cast. Mm. So I'm thinking going forward, if I write another book, which I hope to do, I will, I think include more Judaism probably than I did in this book.

Interesting. There's cultural references, but not like true, true. As much as the set set up here though of the justice, justice shall you pursue, which is, you know, a shout out to the painting that was in my house growing up, which I put into the, um, into this. Wow. 

Zibby: Okay. April doesn't share necessarily everything with her husband.

Talk about marriage and the secrets we keep or the, the things we don't wanna talk about on difficult days, and the effect of that on relationships. How many secrets are you keeping 

Amy: Secret? My, I keeping? No, it's, I feel like for April and Peter, you know, he knew what he was getting into. She told him upfront he knew the deal.

Mm-hmm. That, you know, part of the reason that he wanted to take this job in Chicago is to sort of help her start a new chapter in her life. And he was no fool. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Amy: He knew this could creep up at some point, and I think. Rudy's early release was just an unexpected twist. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Amy: And he was blindsided and he didn't handle it well.

And I think that was one of, you know, my, my goals in all of this is that not one of the characters in this book is a bad person. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Amy: But they can do bad things. I think that's true in life. You know, people have layers to them and there's a, I don't wanna spoil anything, but there, there are several characters in this book who think that they're doing the right thing and they have the best of intentions and it may not always work out.

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Amy: As they hope. And then they try to reverse course and, and, you know, ask for forgiveness. There's a lot of layers. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Amy: There are a lot of layers in this. 

Zibby: So you talked about starting out with the characters and the order in which you kind of conceived of them and how the plot came to be, and then what did you do?

Did you have like a master? Outline for the whole thing, or how long did it take? You said there's been a break. How long was it spent writing this book versus other books? Did you start something that didn't go anywhere? Like what has happened in between? 

Amy: Well, I had this idea the whole time I stopped and started and stopped and started.

And eventually it came together. I, you know, I, when you get ideas, sometimes I think as writers, you know, like it just hits you in inside and you can't let go of certain things and other things you can sort of let go. This one I couldn't let go of. I don't know if it's, you know, this deep psychological thing that I didn't go to law school on.

This is my way of saying, okay, I'm doing some contribution to the criminal justice community. But yeah, I, I, I had the characters first, and then I sort of developed this general plot, and then I had points A, B, and C, you know, for each chapter. And I eventually got there. Didn't always stay according to plan, but I got the major points in each chapter, and then I revised again and revised again.

And that's how it, it all comes together there. You know, Rudy, the name Rudy came to me because another. Uh, my dad was another source of inspiration for this. My dad, when he went to law school, he went to GW and he, uh, moved into the dorms there and the first week he saw a notice on the bulletin board in the dorm, and it said, free room and board if you take a job at the DC jail, inter living in the officer's quarters and interviewing inmates.

So he was like, cool. So he moved outta the dorm and he moved into the DC jail and he ended up interviewing inmates and figured that was a great experience for somebody who wanted to be a criminal defense lawyer. And so one of the inmates that he interviewed was this guy Holocaust Bradley, who I named one of the characters in the book, Holocaust Bradley.

And he brought this poem, if by Rudy Kipling. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Amy: Um, to my dad and to discuss it with him. And that story has stayed in me forever. And so Rudy's name comes from the Rudyard KIPP company. Aw, that's such nice. I love that. But those were like, there were little things that I knew I wanted and then, you know, it takes twists and turns and the hardest part was actually getting the, the research down, the medical and the legal aspects, you know, fine tuning all of that.

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Amy: That was the hardest part for me. Um, so I spoke to a lot of doctors and several lawyers and getting the New York penal code down and, and understanding, you know, what would make ineff ineffective assistance of counsel and the jargon and the bail amounts and the time away and making sure everything was accurate.

So it was, you know. That took time too. 

Zibby: Yeah, I bet. 

Amy: So. So have you started your next book? I have the idea, it's marinating. I actually have two ideas and I'm sort of trying to combine them. One of them is an offshoot from the essay from on being Jewish. 

Zibby: Interesting. So inspired by who knew. 

Amy: So that's it.

Zibby: Amazing. Amy, thank you so much. Such good people coming soon. Thank you for talking to me. Thank you for contributing to the I'm being Jewish now book and thank you for your interest in people because what's more interesting than sort of dissecting human behavior. Right. 

Amy: Thanks so much for having me. 

Zibby: Okay.

Alright, take care. Bye.