Zibby chats with debut author Julie Fingersh about her warm, witty, and beautifully written memoir, STAY: A Story of Family, Love, and Other Traumas. Julie and Zibby discuss the book's themes, from parenting adult children and the challenges of middle age to women’s ambitions and self-perception and confronting the lingering effects of past trauma. Julie also opens up about her brother’s struggle with mental illness, her daughter’s health challenges, and the disorienting feeling of envy as she watches her daughter step into her own extraordinary life (like when she was part of Hillary Clinton's motorcade). Finally, she describes Anna Quindlen’s influence on her work.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Julie. Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss your amazing book, Stay, a Story of Family, Love, and Other Traumas. So good. 

Julie: So happy to be here. Thanks for having me. 

Zibby: Oh, my gosh. Okay. Tell listeners the elevator pitch. What is your book about? 

Julie: Oh, my gosh.

That's the thing that's so interesting that is as many times as people ask me, it's so very difficult to do in a quick summary, because it is about. 

Zibby: You want you want me to try? 

Julie: Yeah, you try. Please. I can't wait to hear yours because I feel like it's like all things that different things to different people.

I can't wait. Let me hear. 

Zibby: I think it's a coming of middle age story about wrestling with past grief and the uncertainty of launching kids into the world and dealing with all the things that come with it, including illness and things that are out of your control and trying to wrestle with the past as the future lays out in front of you.

Julie: Okay. Let me just write that down. 

Zibby: What do you think?

Julie: I think it's,.. 

Zibby: I mean, I left a lot out. There's so much in here,.. 

Julie: But yeah, that is that, and I think it's also so much about. the cost of our past on our present and like that invisible blueprint that we can live with without realizing it's a blueprint until it kind of comes back to roost.

And I think that for a lot of us, it's midlife where it all comes to roost. And then you get the choice of like, what are you going to do with that? Are you going to be buried with it? Or are you going to, are you going to run towards it? And just side note. You're an example of someone who ran toward it, and I'm you did because you took one life and then you created a whole new life.

And I, I think that's kind of what's happening for me and, but it came, I don't know that it came naturally. From this, from you, but for me, it came out of like a, it's sort of a deep paralysis of like, I didn't really know what was going on inside and it took me writing to figure that out. 

Zibby: Well, you have a moment in the book.

Well, first of all, I, in my explanation, it is also specifically about your brother's descent into mental illness, Danny, when you were younger and his eventual death and I'm so sorry. And also your daughter, Jessie and her stomach issues and how that escalated and basically these two things that will, are simultaneously spiraling out of your control with people that you love and you're not knowing what to do.

But then there's this overlay, which I love. And I kept chuckling, like reading all these things, like your daughter is out in the world and is about to like go on a motorcade with Hillary Clinton. And you're In Target being like, how is she with Hillary? And I'm at Target. Right? And it's, it's something that most women don't talk about.

Julie: It's true. 

Zibby: Can we be jealous of our kids? Like, did we miss out? Like, did our moms feel like this? Did our grandmothers feel like this? Like, Anyway, so I feel like that moment is when you're calling, I think, your husband on the phone in Target. Like, just tell me, tell me about that because I feel like that was some sort of turning point.

Julie: It was. It was. And you know how in writing they're like, what's the inciting incident? It has to be like something really powerful. And I was like, well, this is horribly embarrassing because my inciting incident was that I always, I had always sort of seen myself as a really good parent. It was like the thing I was really good at.

And suddenly, I was feeling literally envious of my child. And it was so dysphoric to me. And I was sitting there, I dropped her off. She was tired. But part of the Hillary Clinton campaign and she was going to be driving the motorcade around. And, and I, and the secret service guy was like, um, ma'am, you know, kind of looking like through me cause I am no longer a person cause I am like the mother and I was like, I now have six hours to go do something while my daughter's like there.

And I was sitting in that parking lot and, and I was just like, what happened to my life? Because I was a writer and I was like totally headed for the stars as she was, but that, that feeling of envy was so awful and it made me realize that it was sort of and it is you're right. It's something we don't as parents.

It's, you know, you're allowed to be like, have certain feelings about your kids, but you know, envy is just definitely not one of them. And. And it just made me realize that it really had nothing to do with her. It was more like what had happened to my life. And I had made these choices that were suddenly coming back to roost.

And it was in writing the book. What was amazing to me was getting in touch with things that I just, I, I consider myself a very introspective and kind of, you know, perceptive person. And, and it's like, How do you miss things in your very own life? You know, how do you, like, I, I don't know if you've ever read Walker Percy.

He's a southern writer who's amazing. He wrote The Moviegoer, which was like a really influential book to me. And he talks about, he talks about like, why is it that we can look in a mirror over and over again, but once you're away from the mirror, you don't really know what you look like. other people know what you look like, but if you had to draw a self portrait, you don't.

And so anyway, it was, it was, it was a lot about that. And I think the reason it's resonating for people is that I think there are a lot of women in our generation who made the choices that we, you know, thought were best for our families. And, and then, You know, the rest of the parts of us came up and were like, we have things to, to come to terms with.

Zibby: So, no, I mean, I stayed home with my kids like you did. And when I read in your book, when the guy you were on the phone with and he was like, Oh, Julie, back from the dead, you know, and you're like, I wasn't dead. I was staying at home with my kids, you know, like, like people just don't necessarily know what to do with the fact that our identities can be sort of.

paused, like, because we're doing this thing that is very important, and I know you've wrestled with the decision, but it's like, as we all do, right? But they are only young ones, and, you know, what do you do if you have the luxury of making that choice? And what does that say about you as a person? How do you kind of, like, get back into it?

So I don't know. Right, right. All your examples. I was just like, yes, I've been there. 

Julie: It's such a funny thing, also, because I think you and I are similar in that, for many of us, we have these huge lives. Before kids, right? And like I, you know, I talked about in the book, it was like, I was a writer and I worked for business week and I had national violence.

And then I was the head of the organization and I had, you know, board meetings and I was on a stage with Colin Powell and I was a person. And then suddenly I was in a little circle. And a music thing with a drooling baby on my lap and for many years was just known as Jesse's mom and then Jesse and Sam's mom and it and sort of like society's fake campaign about motherhood like, like that guy said to me, his name shall go unnamed that back from the dead.

It's like, and then when I was like, well, I'm, I'm not really dead. And he was like, Oh, this is the most important job in the world. And then you just are like, This is fake. This is literally fake. Because, because that's what everyone says. And we know it's true as moms, but it's not really valued as such. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh.

Julie: Right? 

Zibby: Yeah. Can we talk about our shared love of Anna Quinlan and you, you mentioned her so much throughout the book and how you used to wait for her columns to come out on every Thursday. Right? Every Thursday. And how she's been, you know, a role model for you, and then you thanked her again in the acknowledgements, and you're like, Anna Quindlen was not involved in the writing of this book.

Julie: Right. Right. But she, well, so did you, did you read her when you were young too? Yes. I am obsessed. I love her. I love. So, so, so didn't, like, were you like me in that when I started reading her, I was Wait a second. This is a possibility. People can write about life because okay, that seems important. And then I just, yeah, I, she has totally lit my way.

And I just think that she opened the world up to the idea that of living out loud, which is, as you know, one of her books and that it's sort of like she has put up a mirror for us that it's okay. You know, it's okay to be transparent and to live out loud. And the thing is, that's so interesting, like watching your career unfold and then watching before that hers.

And now bizarrely watching mine is that the irony is the more you live out loud, the more people respond, because you're one of the few like you say things that people don't say out loud. And that's why people that's one of the reasons why people are so drawn to you because it's like somebody is telling the truth, you know, somebody is telling the truth.

And whether it's for, you know, about life or about, you know, in this book, it's, it's like giving a window into mental illness and to chronic illness, which, you know, I mean, You know, I hadn't talked about my brother for 30 years. My, when I, a couple of years, a few years ago, when I came out at high holiday services and I was asked to tell a story, I was like, It was at that time I was having so much, you know, angst and I was like, I think I have to do this.

I think I have to go public with this. And when I did that, when I talked about that personal story, there were maybe 10 people in the room who even knew I had a brother and I'd been living in California for 25 years. And what was so life changing to me and really has defined my worse now going forward is how and I know the same thing because I read about you that the same thing happens to you is that so many people came up to me and were like thank you for like I didn't know you that could happen to you you know people we have we project these visions of ourselves and, and then it gives people, you know, the chance to, to know that like, actually that's the path, that's the path to meaning and connectedness and intimacy, you know, to tell the truth.

So, I think I've answered a question you didn't ask. Sorry about that. 

Zibby: No, it's very important. No, I mean, sharing is the most connecting thing you can do. Like, people are craving that vulnerability. We all need a path forward and to not feel like we're crazy with our own thoughts, you know? I mean, actually, I shouldn't say it that way, given that we are talking about your brother mental illness.

Julie: No. No, no, no. 

Zibby: But, you know, we're not alone in how we feel. You know, it's not easy for everybody, and people have backstories you don't know, and if we just were to share them, like, there was a while where I was like, can't we all just get these t shirts, like, so that we know, like, if we were walking down the street, like, you know, anniversary of, of the loss of someone I love today.

And like, people would treat you differently. Or like, you know, used to be really shy. Lost my brother. Like, da da da da. Like, all these things, like, people immediately would come over to you and be like, oh my gosh. But we don't do that. 

Julie: You know what's, you know what's so funny? I don't know if you know this, that Frank Bruni, do you, do you read Frank Bruni in the New York Times?

So one of his recent book, I'm like, it's the name of escaping me, but he, about his eye blindness, he, yeah, blindness. He talked about that exact thing. He said we should have sandwich, is it called, are they called sandwich boards? We should have sandwich boards that are like. Lost my brother. That, that, that is the anniversary.

Zibby: That's an even better idea. I didn't read the book, so I didn't know that. 

Julie: Oh, it's so good. And you know, I think, and I tell you one thing that has really like had a huge impact on me and this whole book journey. 

Zibby: Tell me. 

Julie: Your projects on being Jewish now. And, And the fact that you are coming out as one of the very few leaders to really stand up and say the truth, and it is challenging a lot of us Jews who have been a little bit like understanding the cost of telling the truth because we're seeing it, but then to see someone like you do it.

And it is frankly, I think as you know, because I believe I wrote you like a very long, probably inappropriately boundary, boundary lists comment on Facebook has really challenged me because it's actually connected me. It's kind of brought to a head this idea of hiding and it made me realize that, like, this book I wrote because of the cost of hiding.

And now we're in this moment and I'm in this like really weird phase where my book is about to come out and then also October 7th and we're watching how it was the beginning, October 7th, which we thought was going to be the moment where like, you know, we would perhaps be treated as Jews, like with the same humanity as every other but actually we found out that that was like the kickoff for the campaign of hate.

And it's such a challenge because I'm like, as I've said to you, I, I have been in a quandary about it because I really feel like, am I really posting about my little book while, you know, my cousins in Israel are sending their children literally into war? against their will, but that because what else are they going to do?

So anyway, maybe we'll talk about this offline, but I just want you to know that it's, I finally, in these last few days, and after coming to your launch event and, and, and seeing everybody just, and reading the stories, it's really come to me that like, duh, the connection that, yeah, there's going to be a cost.

There's going to be a cost to telling the truth. There's going to be. You know, I'm well, actually, so far, really weirdly, this book is like, people are like, I'm having a thought hangover. I you're making me question myself in all these different ways. And it's because I stopped hiding. And anyway, another question I'm answering you didn't ask, but I just I feel like so much of this book and so much of our lives are really about the question that life asks of us, which is, are we going to live authentically?

Are we going to tell the truth? And are we going to own, like, all the parts of ourselves? Whether it's, you lost a brother to mental illness, and back at a time where that was the biggest stigma, or you're a Jewish author in a day where Jewish authors are being killed. You know, gone after. So, anyway, it's such an intense time, I think, in our world, isn't it?

Zibby: It is. Thank you for even sharing that. I mean, even that is so powerful. I mean,.. 

Julie: Well you're really, it's hard as a former journalist not to turn this around and interview you, which I would like to do at a separate point. But I really think you have been an example of finding your voice, not just for you, but for the rest of the world.

And I think that, you know how people are like, I wrote this book to help other people. Well, I'm really sorry to say I didn't. I didn't write this book to help people. I wrote this book because I was in a personal state of hell and it was the only way I could get out of it. But then once I wrote it, because I have an ego and I have, you know, and also wanted to be a writer again, I decided I am going to take this and then turn it from a journal.

I mean, I guess it was never really, but into a real book that's like a book that is going to challenge people to like, think about their parenting. The sort of line between nurturing and codependence, the line between taking care of others and, and actually doing it for ourselves, like fulfilling our own needs by being needed.

You know, I mean, there's just so many at every stage of our life as we lose things and as we gain things, we're like, life asks us, what are you doing? And why are you doing it? And I think that I don't know. So I went from writing a book that really was for me to hopefully writing one. That will give people thought hangovers about where they've been and where they're going and what what is left of their lives and how are they going to use it because that's something that I just am really the older I get with the privilege I have of being able to like not necessarily go to a factory every day and make widgets like how am I going to use it and part of it I think is going to be to follow in Anna Quinlan's footsteps and to follow in your footsteps, even though you're younger than me, but I'm still following.

Barely, barely. But seriously, to just Um, you know, how are we using our life, especially given the world we're living in right now. So anyway, sorry. I feel like I've taken over this interview. 

Zibby: You were supposed to take over the interview because it's not an interview. These are conversations. I just want to, I just want to have meaningful conversations.

That's why I do this podcast. Like it's not, so I can, I don't have a list I ever run through of like, I have to ask this. I have to ask that. I just want to talk to people. This is exactly why I do the shows. Everything you were saying. This is why I do everything. Like, to give people the inspiration to know that, like, they can take a different next step, and, like, now is the time.

And that's exactly what your book is. Is saying to us, you know, I mean, yeah, it's, it's proving that it's a complete example of, of it's, it's never too late. You can always start your next chapter, like it's time to reassess. We love people so much are, you know, secret keeping secrets is the most like corrosive thing that can happen to us and corrosive, like let's connect and, and make our world better and other people's while we're at it.

Like that's why, you know, right. 

Julie: No, it's so true and you know the thing that's weird about midlife that no one really tells you till you get here is, you know, it's got a terrible brand. If you could please do something, could you do, maybe one of your projects, we need to redo midlife. Let me get my pen.

Zibby: Let me get my pen. Put it on my list. Up there with like the Zippy Hotel and all my other pipe dreams. 

Julie: Yes. Okay. Yeah. I, that would also be good because New York City, I'm like, yeah, just a few blocks away from here now. And in my, in my cousin's daughter's bedroom and thinking like, it would be nice if, wouldn't it be fun to have a hotel for writers?

Zibby: Yeah, I have the whole thing. I have the whole thing.

Julie: Is that what you're saying? 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Julie: Okay. 

Zibby: The whole thing. We'll talk about it. I know what it looks like. I walk the halls when I'm stressed in my brain. 

Julie: Oh my god. 

Zibby: I have it all decorated. Yeah, I have like. 

Julie: There could be writing rooms. 

Zibby: Writing rooms and like everybody congregates.

It's like a perpetual retreat. 

Julie: Okay, I love it so much. Okay. I would love for you to put on your list rebranding midlife because it's now, it's so funny. I don't remember who I was talking to. 

Zibby: Oh, I put it on a sticky note. I'll put it now on my, on my computer. 

Julie: Okay. Please put me on that committee. Please put me on there.

So, because It's so funny. I was talking to my publicist and she's like, well, it kind of sucks because all the midlife magazines like went out of business. Like, you know, remember more and all these ones. Oh, turns out they're just not that like fashionable. Okay meanwhile, how many millions of midlife women are that?

I mean, are we not like the engine for everything? Everything. 

Zibby: Yes. 

Julie: And, but the thing that I think no one tells you is that Is that if you have the privilege and, and, and not everyone can do this, but you have children and once that job is over and I know your kids are still young, I don't know if you're feeling this way when my kids were your kids age, I was like, I am in hell.

Nothing is gonna matter nearly as much. 

Zibby: No, no, because my I have. two 17 year olds. So I'm going through this like imminent empty nest with them and the younger kids are still home, but it's different. They're different kids. 

Julie: They're different. Right. Cause then they turn, then you lose those little kids and now you have these other kids who like, it's a whole different version and you have to be excited about it.

Even when you're very sad also. 

Zibby: Yes. 

Julie: And you're excited. But the thing about, I'm here to tell you as being a person on the other side who looked at that empty nest as a just vortex of fear, anxiety, and dread that. 

Zibby: What about peak life? Peak life? No, you don't like it. Sorry, I cut you off, you know, cause it's not the middle.

And we don't know if it's the middle. It could be like close to the end. 

Julie: You know what? You know what? You know what Jane Fonda called it? She called it primetime. 

Zibby: Hmm. Nah. I like that. I like it.

Julie: I know. See? It's hard to brand. But the point is, and I cut you off. You have to do. No. No. Is that like. Sorry to keep bringing this back to you, but you really, you really did.

You are an example of somebody who had one life and then you just created another. Now, true, you had lots of things and that lots of people don't have to help you do that, but we all have resources of some kind to do that with. And what people didn't tell me about midlife is that it turns out that it can be every bit is rich and in some ways richer because you're smarter, you care less about other people's opinions, and you have a perspective of what's important that you couldn't have when you were younger because you were too busy like people pleasing and like, you know, find the rule book and realize not, you didn't know yet that the rules were like stupid and counterproductive.

Zibby: Yep. 

Julie: But now you're in this moment where you can. And the fact that like, I look back and I'm just not to brag, but it's like in my twenties, I wrote, I had national bylines. I was like, totally have for the stars. Then I was completely sidelined for three decades. And then when I turned 50, I was like, I have to find that person.

I used to be. I don't even remember who that was. 

Zibby: Yes. 

Julie: And you know, and then here, I mean, I'm saying it not to be bragging, but to say I am an example. You're an example. It's like I, I write for the New York Times. I write for, oh, I got, I, I have gotten to places I could never have imagined as a kid. And it's not because I'm so great.

It's because I gave myself the space to do it and to really like write and to, to the permission to come into midlife. As you have and, and, and, and figure out how to not be just for yourself, but how to be for the rest of the world, too, in a way that only you can write as a, as an older person. 

Zibby: This whole conversation could have been like a brand download, because this is like, it's exactly what I want to be doing.

Anyway, this is amazing. This whole thing. 

Julie: So can we keep talking? 

Zibby: Yes. 

Julie: Not now.

Zibby: Yes. 

Julie: Because seriously. Yes. 

Zibby: So anyway. Yes. Just to summarize. Sorry. Because there is a book behind this conversation. 

Julie: Yeah. I know. 

Zibby: No. I mean, seriously. Your book is so good. And I, I know we didn't even like talk about Danny and you know, that's a huge through line.

Julie: Thats okay. No, no. 

Zibby: And whatever. And also, you know, Jesse and everything. There's just, but it's the thoughts between all the big events, right? It's the backstory, it's the heart and soul and voice. And that's why I, I find this book so powerful and why you and I could just chit chat all day about this stuff because this is it.

And if everyone felt empowered to mobilize now, think about how different life will be with everyone. So anyway. 

Julie: And start and no agree. And, and it starts with telling the truth. 

Zibby: Yes. And it starts with,.. 

Julie: Doesn't it? 

Zibby: Yes. A hundred percent. Okay. Julie, this is amazing. I'm going to see you like tomorrow. I think anyway, I am going to see you tomorrow.

Julie: Can I tell you the greatest book end of all? 

Zibby: Yes. 

Julie: I wonder if I'm allowed to say, I think she would be okay with me saying this. A dream came true. And that was that Anna Quinlan wrote me. Do you know this? 

Zibby: I think you emailed me, but say, tell this, tell it. 

Julie: Okay, because I, I hope she doesn't mind. She emailed me, she somehow, I, well, I sent her the book, and then like prayed that she would actually get it and find it, and we won't.

I don't know how that really happened, but, and she did, and she wrote me, and, and she said that, It expanded herself, her knowledge of self. And honestly, to me, like, that's the other thing that we can do in midlife is to help those around us, but first we have to figure our own self. 

Zibby: Yes. 

Julie: But once we do that.

Zibby: Yes. 

Julie: So anyway, I'm able to share that because it's amazing. 

Zibby: That's amazing. I love that. She's the best. You're the best. Thank you. I will see you soon. 

Julie: Thank you. Okay. Thanks so much for having me. 

Zibby: Okay. For anyone still listening, stay a story of family, love and other traumas.