In this special episode (a live event at Zibby’s Bookshop!), Zibby chats with author Elisa Albert about HUMAN BLUES, an utterly original, provocative, and darkly funny novel about a woman who desperately wants a child but struggles to accept the use of assisted reproductive technology. She and Zibby delve into the novel's themes of feminism, fame, art, autonomy, and our cultural obsession with childbearing. They also touch on a recent incident where Elisa was disinvited from the Albany Book Festival after two co-panelists refused to share the stage with “a Zionist.”

Transcript:

Zibby: Thanks for joining us, Elisa. So Let me just start. Elisa in her book says she cannot be in L. A. or her character Aviva cannot be in L. A. more than five consecutive days. How long have you been here this trip? 

Elisa: A week actually. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh. 

Elisa: Yeah, truth is stranger than fiction. 

Zibby: So do you believe that at all?

How do you feel about L. A.? Let's just start there. 

Elisa: I love L. A. I grew up here, but I haven't lived here since I was in high school. I left for college and never came back and now I just visit and it's really fun, especially in December or January or February or March and uh, it's always a treat and I have so many loved ones here, so it's great.

Zibby: Well, for all the LA locals here, there are so many places to go. specific references, uh, that it is fun to take yourselves through Brentwood and everywhere else and, uh, Marina, everywhere. So you can, you can, it's fun to have a local story that you don't necessarily know is local. But in terms of what the book is about in general, why don't you share a little bit about the overall plot?

What is this book about? I could try. 

Elisa: Oh, this book is, uh, it's written in the form of nine chapters. chapters. Each chapter is a menstrual cycle during which the protagonist tries and fails to get pregnant. And at the end of every chapter, she is bleeding tragically and very, very despondent until the end.

When she transcends. Somehow. 

Zibby: Mysteriously. But we won't share how. 

Elisa: Yeah, no spoilers. 

Zibby: Because you have to find out. 

Elisa: Yeah, transcendence is so obscure anyway, so. It's kind of an inkblot. You decide if she transcends or not. 

Zibby: Yes, I like how you left it at the end. Um, I was hoping I could just read a paragraph or two.

Elisa: Please. 

Zibby: Is that okay? 

Elisa: Oh my god, better you than me. 

Zibby: Okay. This is a piece just about L. A. since here we are in Santa Monica. Okay, mortal illness notwithstanding, the rule was ironclad, never more than five consecutive days in L. A. More than five consecutive days in L. A. was certain disaster, a familiar ghost, Lay and wait, but it was her hometown and she loved it dearly.

The sweet mix of Pacific Air and car exhaust, unparalleled salads and smoothies and sunshine, and shopping the Sunset Boulevard curves, she could drive from muscle memory backward forward. blindfolded, hi, let the red hot chili peppers and Tom Petty and Jane's Addiction and Counting Crows serenade her in traffic on Wilshire slash Sunset slash Olympic slash Pico or looking for parking by the pier or trying not to get killed on the 405 or the 101 or the 10.

She was a girl again here forever and ever a third generation LA girl whose adventurous forebears had left behind first the shuttle and then the rust belt and struck out for the West Coast Dream Factory. to gobble up a good amount of bargain real estate decades before there was so much as a hope of multi platform media synergy.

Forget about a philharmonic or a proper art museum and let us say amen. 

Elisa: Amen.

That's a good passage. 

Zibby: Oh, thanks. 

Elisa: It holds up. 

Zibby: Yeah, take me on the road with you. I'll just keep reading. You're great. You're great writing. The way that you write has so much emotion and I love how like every, so many words are italicized so it actually sounds as though you are reading and we can hear you being like, really?

Again? This is happening again? What about this? What about that? Talk a little bit about your writing style and how this intimacy of voice affects the overall sort of trajectory of the story. 

Elisa: The voice like really drives for me. So that's how I get where I'm going. I don't have like a prefab plot ever. I don't like know how I'm getting where I'm going and the voice is what leads me there.

Like the voice has a life of its own and my job as I see it is just to sustain the voice and trust the voice and let the voice like evolve and develop on its own terms. And sometimes it leads me places that I don't necessarily want to go, but you know, tough shit. 

Zibby: So Aviva is, yes, it is about her quest to have children, but she is also a musician.

And as the book starts, she's coming out with her fourth album and she feels like She's now a legitimate musician because after four albums, come on, that's not just one, two or three, right? Like this is the real deal. And so there is this trajectory of success and ambition and what that gets you that also, you know, sometimes goes in direct opposition to this need to stay home and you know, Rebirth or whatever.

So talk a little bit about how you came up with her career and all that. 

Elisa: Yeah. Well put. I was thinking a lot about ambition when I was working on this book and about like, you know, what the failures of ambition are, like how far work and vision and commitment to your vocation can take you. And then what happens when, you know, it's you know, it can only take you so far.

And so, like, this character wants more than anything to have a child and is thwarted in that pursuit, even as she's, like, ascendant as a creative person and, like, being rewarded for that. And so, it's like, you know, what's really important and, like, what is, you know, what can we, like, will in life and what can't be forced and can't be, you know, you know, can't be willed really.

So we can, we can do a lot for ourselves career wise. We can, we can like, we can make things happen in certain directions in certain ways. If we work hard enough, if we're committed enough and there are other things that are elusive and like, that's an interesting tension. Uh, especially for somebody who has grown up in a, in a space of privilege and entitlement and like, whatever you want can be yours, you know?

Like, life and death don't work that way. So, how do we, how do we reconcile that? That's her struggle. 

Zibby: And also how she's keeping these private things a secret and yet she is so public so people start coming over to her and recognizing her and saying she they feel less alone because of her music and yet she's going through all these deeply personal upsetting traumas but doesn't want to share them or talk about them.

So how do you How do you connect with someone when you're keeping so much back? 

Elisa: Like a negotiation between the public and the private and as a creative person. I deal with that a lot as a writer. So that, this was like, this character was a great sort of avatar. I'm really into alter egos. I love to write about people who are a lot like me, except for something super fundamental and huge and central, um, because then I can bring to bear all of my own perspectives, observations, struggles, all the things I have seen and heard and felt, and I can bring them to bear in a way that's not just kind of like a one to one, which I think would be boring as a writer for me.

I wouldn't. I wouldn't have the, I wouldn't have like the energy to follow through a whole novel if I was just kind of giving voice to like, you know, what happened to me or like the, the details of my own life. It's kind of, it's not that interesting, but to swap out some really fundamental stuff and then bring all this, you know, other excess to bear is fun.

It's like a inversion or like a fun house or, Philip Roth said something about like, like subverting and torturing your biography, which I love. So it's like a, it's like a what if for there, but for the grace of God. So, as a writer, I'm always sharing really intimate stuff. Sometimes it's, True. Sometimes it's not true, but it's couched in something that's maybe true or partly true.

It's like, it's playful, you know, and it's fun, but it's confusing sometimes. And I get a lot of feedback, let's say, that is like sometimes really weird and like, and like uncomfortable or like uncalled for or just irrelevant. And like, it has nothing to do with me per se, but how do you deal with that? So like Aviva was an awesome avatar.

Zibby: So what about Aviva is the big central thing that is not like you. 

Elisa: Well, Aviva doesn't have a child. I have a child. Aviva's a musician. I'm a writer. And 

Zibby: that's about it. Everything else is the same. 

Elisa: You know, give or take. 

Zibby: You also write, well, not you, Aviva also deals with her, and there's more seats. Well, actually they're not really, but there's one seat here and there's room if you want to stand back there.

There are three seats. Three seats? Anybody wants to go? No? Okay, or not, whatever. Not to put all the attention, sorry. Aviva also deals with her. her father getting older and having a health crisis that she rushes to his bedside for. He is having these sort of later in life thoughts and feelings and what does it all mean, which is an interesting way to sort of convey our thoughts in general about life.

Tell me about that piece of the storyline and what we can learn from her father. 

Elisa: Um, I don't remember. Um, I worked on this book for, um, I mean, I remember that scene. I do remember that scene. I worked on this book for seven years. It was like, it was a huge undertaking. And actually, we cut 100 pages. This was a 500 page monster.

And I was like, I was into this idea of like experimenting with maximalism because I had written a few novels that, shorter novels, and I really wanted to see if I could do it, you know, like a doorstop. Usually it's like the literary men who get to produce the doorstops. And I was like, hmm, like what if I could write a maximalist novel that contains like, everything and has a million stories within it, you know.

So it was a, it was an epic marathon, this book. And there's stuff in this book that, I mean, of course we edited it and it was years and years and years of copy edits and edits, edits. And, but, uh, you know, I think I was done with my final pass at the end of 2020 and that's, like, a while ago now. 

Zibby: That is a while ago.

Elisa: So, you know, and we did cut a hundred pages. So there's just, like, this was a real, this was a real epic undertaking. And I'm not on the most intimate terms with it anymore. 

Zibby: That's okay. That's okay. That's all right. 

Elisa: That happens sometimes. 

Zibby: I totally understand. 

Elisa: You know? 

Zibby: Well, I got a lot out of that scene.

Because it makes you think about your own relationship with your parents and how time is fragile and all of that. And yet, funny. Because, you know, a lot of, there's a lot of humor. One might say Jewish humor, but maybe not. But how she finally is opening up to her dad about her struggles to have kids and she's crying about it.

And he's like, I'm so sorry. But meanwhile, he's like playing a game on his phone as he's like dying. Anyway, it was like one of these moments where it's like, you can hold all these things at once. You can procrastinate and get stuck in these daily things that waste your time in life. while your time in life is actually ending.

So I don't know. I found it to be profound. 

Elisa: So true. There's so much I loved in this book, this like playing with attention between like the profound and the profane and, and everything in between all at once as much as possible. And there's another element to this book, which is that Aviva you know, is, is kind of struggling with the question of like, should I undertake some assisted reproductive technology?

Because I really want a child and like, This is available to me, and I don't want to do it. And why? Why? That's, like, one of the big central struggles in the book, too. You know, what, what is, what is sacred? What is a mystery? What is not? What is, you know, this, you know, the old joke about the guy who, um, he's drowning, and he says, like, you know, the, the, the lifeboat passes by, and he's like, no, no, no, God will save me, God will save me.

Fine. Like then like a helicopter lowers a ladder to him. No, no, no. God will save me. God will save me over and over and over again until finally he drowns and he goes to heaven or whatever. And, and he says, God, what the hell? And God's like, I sent you a lifeboat, sent you a helicopter, like, what do you, you know?

So like, that's kind of Aviva's struggle too, is like, how much do we avail ourselves of what's available to us versus letting go of our, like, destiny and, you know, accepting life, death, like the refusal to be conceived of this like, uh, of this nascent imaginary creature that she would so like to bring into the world, contrasted with so many kinds of like refusing to exist or refusing to, uh, play along or refusing to partake of interventive, you know, things that could change our fate.

These are the big questions. And she doesn't really find any answers, but the asking of the questions is. 

Zibby: She finds a lot of meaning through Amy Winehouse, but you'll just have to read it to find out why. 

Elisa: Right. So she's obsessed with Amy Winehouse, the girl who refused to live. Versus the, the, the unborn, the unconceived, not unborn, big difference.

Unconceived child is like always imagined to be a girl. So it's like the girl who refuses to be, to be, you know, brought into life versus this like epic figure who refuses to live, who, who destroys herself. And like, can you tell, can you tell somebody like that what to do? If you have a child, can you tell it what to do?

How much control versus how much letting go? 

Zibby: I have four kids and they don't listen to anything. So, um, I guess you can't really tell them what to do. No, I'm kidding. They listen to some things. Just kidding. Um, another thing that I really liked about the book is you don't know necessarily until you get into it that a big part of Aviva's identity is being Jewish and she has therapists.

Who may or may not be a rabbi, but she calls him rabbi and he's not, he's not. Okay. I thought it was, you never know. 

Elisa: It's just his nickname. 

Zibby: It's just his nickname. 

Elisa: The rabbi. 

Zibby: But she has a lot of jokes and introspection about Jewish people in general, including one guy who only decided to embrace his Judaism at all because he kept getting beaten up for it.

And it was finally like, okay, Fine. I'm Jewish. And then marry someone who converted to Judaism and he, like, doesn't know what to do with that. Which I thought was funny. Now, of course, the environment into which books featuring Jewish people has changed, but when you were writing this, perhaps it was more hospitable.

Did it occur to you not to make your main character Jewish? Was that essential piece of it? Where does that, where do you fall on that whole line? 

Elisa: It would never occur to me not to make her Jewish or anyone Jewish. And I don't, I'm not really of the, of the school of thought that like one can't write about someone from a different background or history, but I don't find myself wanting to in general. That, that would seem strange to me personally as the writer I am. I think, I think I will be writing about Jews as long as I'm writing because I am one and it fascinates me to no end. 

Zibby: So I edited this anthology called On Being Jewish Now which came out last month and in it I asked a bunch of authors what does it mean and how does it feel to be Jewish now.

Tell me as if you're sitting across the table from a friend, how does it feel post October 7th, or just something joyous about being Jewish? So I'm wondering, what is your Jewish identity? How does it mean and what does it feel for you to be Jewish now? 

Elisa: It's a, it's a multi layered, deep, long, hard question.

Zibby: Yes, settle in everybody, as you would say. 

Elisa: It's changed a lot. I used to be a much more open and sort of like a big tent Jew. And I was always, I was often the only Jew in the room and I was fine with it and I felt like it was almost like a duty. I was kind of like a shaliach a lot, if that word lands here.

And it was just a given. Like I, I was often the, you know, if I was in Jewish spaces, I would be the leftiest person in the room without fail. You know, I was at, I was, uh, I'm, I'm part of a wonderful community of Jewish writers, uh, called the Sammy Roar Institute. Really love being part of that group. And every two years there's a conference, there's like a meeting.

And, and I, it was probably four years ago now was the last one before this past summer, and we were having a heated discussion about identity politics, about, about race and ethnicity, and I was arguing fervently, like, guys, we're white people. Stop pretending we're not. Like, we gotta just, like, accept it.

Except how they like, really, like, let's like, get with the times, you know, it really doesn't sound good when you're saying, you know, things that contradict that. It's just not going to fly. Let's be realistic, et cetera. And this past summer, the conference was in Jerusalem and it was wonderful and a fellow approached me, a kippah wearing gentleman, and said, Hey, do you remember, Last time when you were really, you know, I'm like, I was just wondering, like, do you still feel that way?

And I was like, no, I do not. It's like, awesome. Good to know. It's everything has changed radically, dramatically and horribly. And I no longer feel at home in spaces that I once. thought were my own, uh, spaces I helped build. I mean, there's a lot of cliches, and they're all true. I don't know where we are in this, so it's hard to know, you know, it's hard to make any statements about where the Anything will be when the dust settles or if the dust will settle or if there's any such thing given the scope of history, it would seem not, but I feel very alienated from a lot of people, spaces, communities that I used to call home and I'm not entirely sorry about it.

It feels liberating in a way and there's a lot of kind of static that for years, I would sort of absorb, excuse, overlook, you know, and it's, there's something to be said for finally being in a place where I have no mercy for, for that kind of garbage and people who are not on the level I don't want in my, in my, home.

It's been, it's been intense. 

Zibby: For, for those of you who don't know, can I share about the festival or whatever? 

Elisa: Oh, sure, sure, sure. Um, yeah. 

Zibby: So there was, and you can fill in details that I don't have, but there was a panel of four authors. Two of the authors wrote the organizer of the festival saying they didn't want to be on the panel anymore because Elisa was such a Zionist.

Elisa: Actually, Zibby, it's worse. 

Zibby: You tell the whole thing. 

Elisa: It's worse. It's worse. 

Zibby: Okay. 

Elisa: They, well, okay. It's, there's, there's no documentation and it's still ongoing with PEN America, the free speech organization, which is trying to, you know, scramble around figuring out how to do its job. The two out of three participants on this panel, none of whom I knew, demanded that I be removed because, uh, they were uncomfortable sharing space, space with a Zionist, quote unquote.

The organizers of the festival rightfully understood that that would be a violation of the Civil Rights Act. We don't want to do that. So they said no. And then the two said, well, we're not coming. We, we refuse. We're boycotting, you know, out of solidarity with the people of Gaza, because, you know, Gaza is dependent, as you know, on the goings on at the Albany Book Festival, um, and uh, fomentors of jihadism are greatly bolstered by mid list, mid career novelists and their literary festival shenanigans.

Um, we are very important, um, who knew? So, and then there was a, the third panelist who, um. was called, you know, and asked like, well, what do you, what do you think? You know, what do you, do you have an opinion? And this person was just kind of like, oh, this is all pretty terrible. I don't really want to be anywhere near it.

Count me out. Which sounds like a nice, nice, uh, option to have. And I, They called me up, the organizers, and they go like, well, this is a bad situation, and I was like, you can go to the festival and discuss why I'm there alone. That's how it goes. Uh, and they said, no, that's not, that doesn't sound pleasant.

So, why don't we just not? And I was like, guys, not gonna go quietly. Like, please. You're gonna look real bad. Don't do this. It's a real error. And they said, oh, sure, sure. Okay, little lady. And, uh, I just, uh, I emailed five of the most influential people I know in media and publishing, and I said, hey, here's a situation, help.

And each one of them replied, ran with it and it went all over the world and I think the Writers Institute, which runs that book festival, got something like 3, 000 emails in 48 hours from people all over the world, which was amazing. There was a huge outpouring of support. There was a little bit of psychotic, frightening, hate mail, and that's the story. 

Zibby: How does it end? 

Elisa: It hasn't ended. 

Zibby: Uh, one of What happened in the film? 

Elisa: Oh, nothing. The festival went on as planned. Did it end? No. I, I was told not to go. And I'm not a masochist. I'm, I'm, I'm many things, but, um, I wasn't gonna, like, say anything storm it. You know, it didn't, it didn't, the panel didn't take place.

The book festival went on and one of the writers in question, the boycotters lost a 30, 000 a year fellowship at a very cushy library in Connecticut. Yeah. You know, on and on, on, you know,. 

Zibby: But this, she is a teacher, an English teacher at a private school in Connecticut who has had to deal with and she is still a teacher there.

She has not been her defense. 

Elisa: Yeah. 

Zibby: Just throwing that out there. 

Elisa: Yeah. The Greenwich Academy. See, what's interesting to me is that we have a script at this point. We've been through, I would say, a decade generously of like identity politics and like you know microaggressions and like you can't say that word and you can't do that and you know Me Too and We have a script now, if you err, if you make a mistake, if you're accidentally a bigot, you say, I'm so sorry, I will learn and do better.

And then it's partially alleviated, right? And then it's like, okay, let's all move on and you can be forgiven. We don't need to purge people. We don't need to live in like a, you know, I'm going to purge you. No, I'm going to purge you like, you know, and it's fascinating to me that like with this script that exists.

And that we've had so much practice using and seeing other people use, and it's de rigueur, it's like pro forma, you know what you say if you mess up, if you microaggress, if you misgender someone, if you use the wrong word, if you're, you know, there's a script. So, like, what's fascinating to me is that neither of these people, or their literary agents, or their publishers, or their employers, said, hey, you need to apologize and here's your script.

And then, you know, maybe you don't lose your 30, 000 a year fellowship, or maybe you don't, you know, get a lot of hate mail and, you know, why is, why is this the only, you know, bigotry that is. 

Zibby: I think that's something that I just cannot get past right now, that it is only okay to speak badly about Jewish people.

Why is that okay? Right. Why? How is that sanctioned? If anybody else had said, I'm not going to sit on a panel because of this person's, the color of their skin or their sexuality or anything else. That would be horrific. Abhorrent. And of course, all, like a lot of people objected to what happened to you. In fact, that's part of why you're here.

Cause I didn't know you before. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry this happened to you. And I'm like, you want a place to talk? Come to my store. Here we go. So here we are. But still, I mean, I don't know how it is okay. And I don't know how. We all like move forward in a world where it's only okay to bully one group.

And it happens to be not everybody here, but like for the people here who are in that group, that group. 

Elisa: Us, it's not okay. And we have to make sure it's not okay. And you know, the hypocrisy and the intellectual fraudulence need to be called out hard. And consistently, and it's going to take more than once or twice or, you know, and we don't have a choice, unfortunately, you know, here we are.

Zibby: Well, I would encourage you all to read your essay that you ended up writing about it, which was so amazing. But maybe you could just summarize or say one or two points from that, not to get too far from the book. But, you know, it's important and the essay was amazing. 

Elisa: Thank you. So, you know, a lot of people reached out to me in the wake of that asking me to write stuff or, you know, and I thought a lot about it.

I didn't want to write a sort of a, you know, a sanitized op ed. I felt a lot of feelings. They always let me say what I want to say, how I want to say it. They never, they never sort of forced me to modulate my tone or like take out any of the flavor, you know? And so I wrote what I wanted to write and they They ran it and it was basically saying, you know, this sucks.

And the, the, the gist was like, hey, guys, unfortunate bigots who made a mistake and surely want to write it, R I G H T, write it. Why don't you come to my house for Shabbos dinner and we'll talk it over. And I wasn't being facetious, you know. I was, I was making a genuine offer. I don't think it was taken as such.

I never heard anything. And, uh, that's I'm guessing they were aware of it. I think, I think they're pretty aware of what goes on on the internet. That's that's the vibe that I'm getting very, very internet aware to their detriment. 

Zibby: To leave things more on a hopeful note, because I do feel that there is a lot of hope.

One of the things that I've seen through this conversation. Through Elisa standing up and speaking out through groups like this, coming together to listen and contribute and learn. That is the strength that is building and helping the whole community at large. And I think supporting each other, having each other's backs, helping when somebody gets discriminated against so openly and not being one of the people to say, Oh, that's fine.

But one of the people Jewish or not to say, you know what, this is not okay. That is the work we can all do. And I think that anything. You could like, Elisa can write a novel and she can write a beautiful essay in response to a really painful situation, but everybody in this room has something they're really good at, even if it's just talking to your kids or speaking at a school or working at an art museum, whatever it is, you all have your things and we can all use our things to help this situation and communicate to the people in our little circles.

And if everybody starts doing that, that is a huge, yeah. ripple effect, which will have consequences. And I, I really believe in that, that we can all actually make a difference one person at a time and armed with information like Elisa's situation, like use that as a jumping off point. Like, what do you think about that?

Like, do you think this is fair? Like, what would you have done if you were in that situation for something about you that, you know, anyway. So I feel a lot of hope in that. If anybody is interested for on being Jewish, now we have a new sub stack where we're accepting essays about what it means to be Jewish for everybody, not just the people in the book who are authors.

So if anybody is interested in writing an essay and maybe exploring what it means and how it feels to be Jewish. Now, if you're Jewish, even if you're not Jewish and you're just responding to what's going on culturally, Please feel free to submit and follow along there. And just, we are all activists now because this is the world we live in.

So we get to make our, we get to choose our next steps very carefully and it seems clear which way we should go. So take that if we take that with you anyway. Any parting words from you or thank you for coming. 

Elisa: The work that you've been doing in this realm has been super inspiring. 

Zibby: Oh, you too. You too. I feel the same way.

Um, okay. Well, Elisa will sign books. They're available at the desk. Thank you all for coming.