Totally Booked: LIVE! In this special episode of the podcast (in-person at the Whitby Hotel with a live audience!), Zibby interviews debut author Kate Broad about her stunning, fast-paced, atmospheric novel, GREENWICH. The story centers on Rachel, a 17-year-old navigating a pivotal summer in the opulent world of Greenwich, Connecticut, where a terrible accident forces her to make a life-altering decision. Kate discusses the book’s themes of girlhood, class, moral ambiguity, and family loyalty, as well as the emotional isolation that spans generations. She also opens up about her long road to publication, sharing advice for aspiring writers and the persistence it takes to bring a novel to life. 

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome back to Totally Booked With Zibby. I am Zibby Owens, and I am so excited to be here today with Kate Broad to discuss her debut novel, Greenwich. Yay clap.

Kate: Thank you. 

Zibby: I'm gonna just read a little bit about Kate. And then we will dive into her delicious book. Kate Broad holds a BA from Wellesley College and a PhD in English from the Cuny. Cuny. 

Kate: Cuny. 

Zibby: Cuny. Yeah, cuny. Sorry. 

Kate: CUNY people. Say it differently. 

Zibby: I knew Suny. Okay. CUNY Graduate Center. She is a Bronx Council of the Arts Award winner for fiction, and her writing appears in the rumpus, No Tokens the book. The Brooklyn Review and elsewhere. Greenwich is her first novel. Congratulations. 

Kate: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. 

Zibby: Of course. 

Kate: It's exciting. 

Zibby: Thank you to Cadus readers for these glasses so, so grateful. Um, okay. Greenwich, please tell everybody what is your book about? 

Kate: So it's about a woman named Rachel.

And she is, uh, she's looking back on this pivotal summer that she spent staying with her, very, very wealthy aunt and uncle in Greenwich, Connecticut. And when she goes down to Greenwich, um, she's, it's the summer before she's starting college, so she's about to turn 18. She's about to like have this new phase in her life.

It feels like everything is about to start for her, and then a terrible accident happens. And it puts her in a position where she has to make a big choice and it's the kind of decision that it really tests her moral compass. It's her sense of right and wrong, it's her family loyalty. She has all of these competing pressures and as she is looking back on this summer, it's, the book is about like what happened in Greenwich, but it's also about the consequences and kind of how all of the dominoes.

Start to fall and how that affects not only Rachel's life and her future, but also her family and then everyone who gets unfortunately caught up in their orbit. 

Zibby: Wow. So it's really also about family loyalty. When Rachel goes to Greenwich, her sister Jules has just been diagnosed with cancer, is going under treatment.

Her parents are understandably, quite distracted. Her aunt and uncle who she goes to stay with her. Aunt Ellen has just had this terrible accident, um, a horseback riding accident from which she's struggling to recover. And Rachel is there to sort of help take care of her daughter, but also. So her and not necessarily even getting the love that she needs from really anybody.

Kate: Anyone. Yeah. 

Zibby: And talk about what had just happened with her friend group, because of course at that time, being sort of expelled from friend group is the worst. 

Kate: Yeah. It sort of starts off, there's all of this drama, high school drama that's going on. Um, and it's very much about sort of, these are these factors that like.

There's this sort of the push her to wanna spend the summer at Greenwich and, and it's that she, like you're saying, she has all of these things going on at home. Her little sister is sick and her parents are understandably so overwhelmed. Um, and then meanwhile, yeah, she's had all of. This friend drama, um, and her best friend has ditched her, is being pretty mean to her.

And she is just thinking like she can't spend the whole summer at home. Um, in Massachusetts, kind of everyone's going to parties without her feeling like everyone's talking about her. And she sort of seizes upon this idea, which is like, she knows that her aunt needs help. Her mom was gonna go just for like a weekend to Greenwich, and then Rachel kind of has this idea that's like, I know I can be.

Super helpful and go down and take care of my aunt and help her with babysitting. Um, Rachel's cousin, who is three, um, and they have the, this is such a wealthy family, like they have help for everything. They're hiring out for everything. So they have a live-in babysitter, Claudia, but. Rachel's still like, I'll go.

Um, and so she sort of tells herself this story that's like, I'm gonna be of use, I'm doing something selfless for my family. But I think as we like, dig into her psychology a little bit more, it's clear she has her own reasons, um, and reasons that she feels kind of conflicted about. Like, should she have left her sister?

Should she have left her friend group? Um, but also it's so nice in Greenwich. Um, and so how could she not wanna be there? 

Zibby: You have this scene at CVS where Rachel is in one aisle and knows right away that her three old best friends are, you know, getting their hair highlighter in the carts or whatever, and you have her just like drop the cart and sneak out of the CVS so that her friends don't see her.

And it's, it's like so heartbreaking. It's just the worst. 

Kate: It's, I mean, I, and I was really thinking about like girlhood and like what does it feel like to be a girl and what does it feel like to then grow up into adulthood? And it's such a transition point and it's. I mean, I certainly felt like, not that I've had that exact thing happen, but I think we've all had experiences of being on the outside or realizing we thought we were on the inside and now what if we're on the outside?

And a lot of it also stems from a sort of misunderstanding with her friend group. And none of them know how to talk about it, and none of them know how to resolve it. And that becomes, there's a sort of, there's a line later where Rachel is recounting to Claudia, the family's babysitter, like, what happened?

Um, and it's the first time she's kind of opening up to someone about saying like, well, I lost all of my friends. And she's thinking to herself like, it feels really petty. It feels really silly to be talking about these girl problems. And then, but Rachel's also thinking about her. Aunt is also navigating this social political world of wealthy, powerful people in Greenwich.

And it's the same thing. Like it's not that different. And she's thinking about like her teenage years are these, it's the staging ground for the adults that they're gonna become. And that I think we kind of dismiss girlhood. At our peril, you know, it's not, it's different and it isn't, and we sort of grow up and yet we don't necessarily leave all of those people behind.

And Rachel, in this process of coming of age, I think is also realizing like that CVS doesn't change, even if you know you're suddenly later on, like with her aunt, it's a political stage or it's. Um, you know, all of these other families in Greenwich, it's like there's some way in which, like, we're all 17 at CVS, realizing our friends are hanging out without us.

Zibby: Do you, do you wanna get it off your chest? Go ahead. I, I'm here for it. 

Kate: I know, I know. 

Zibby: What happened? What happened, Kate? It's okay. Um, no, I had that moment too. I had like this one group, everybody like ran away and I was like, where are we running? And then I was like, wait, are they running away from me? 

Kate: I know. And what's so hard is like, what if you don't know? 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Kate: I mean, that's always the question, you know, that I have and I think that Rachel has, which is like, what if. What if I don't know, and if no one talks about it, and so much of this book is about the things that we don't talk about. Like if you can't sit down and have a conversation with your best friend that says like, I'm afraid I might have hurt your feelings.

Can we talk about it? How do you become an adult who can say. I'm having a problem and I need someone to talk to. And like you were saying in the beginning of this, like Rachel's parents are not there providing any emotional support, and in fact, no one is providing anyone with the emotional support that they need.

And you can kind of see these generational cycles of like, if no one has these emotional tools in their toolkit, how do we come to a place where we can like talk about things that people are feeling or talk about the, the things that are going wrong. Um, Rachel's. Loneliness and her isolation kind of follows her to Greenwich.

Um, and then I think kind of follows her out of Greenwich too. 

Zibby: She has one moment with Claudia where she's feeling really awkward. I mean, admittedly, she's like spying on her, so I, whatever. 

Kate: It's awkward. 

Zibby: So it's, it's justified awkwardness, but she's like, oh, no matter where I go, there I am. Like the same awkwardness that was plaguing me at home is, is still here. You like can't run away from your own. Issues. 

Kate: Yeah. It's like a little moment of Rachel Insight, which sometimes she has and sometimes she doesn't in part because she's 17 and in part because she's just human and that is that moment of right she like recognizes yeah, wherever you go, there you are. Um, and that kind of follows her through her life later too.

Zibby: Well, meanwhile, Rachel is observing so much. So she has her own issues, but then we get to be in her shoes as she goes through this palatial house with, even though it hasn't been fully renovated yet and whatever. But there's like a pretend lake, not a pretend there's a lake in the beginning, you know, in the entryway and like a whole floor.

Former servant's rooms or whatever that hasn't been brought up to date and whatever, and she starts looking around and finding what her aunt is hiding in her medicine cabinet and what is her uncle doing with these very sketchy business deals. And all of a sudden we kind of. See things unfolding a little bit because through her eyes.

Kate: Yeah. And everything is through her eyes. So there's this feeling of like, what's really going on? What is Rachel's perspective of what's going on? Do we trust her perspective? Um, she is Yeah, there are all of these family secrets in this house and Rachel wants to be part of something. She wants to sort of be an adult and be part, be brought in so that people would confide in her or tell her.

Um, but really how she goes about doing this is right. She is, she's observing is a very nice way of putting it. She's spying on people a lot of the time. 

Zibby: I'm trying to give Rachel the benefit of the doubt here. 

Kate: Yes, yes. No, you have to do that. Um. And she there, yes, she's eavesdropping. She's also, but she notices everything and she is very observant.

Um, and she, that's part of like, she's trying to figure out the world and trying to figure out her place in it. And she's doing that by kind of tracking. What are these people like? And her aunt and uncle are so different from her mom and dad in many ways. And that's like the appeal, right, of going to stay with your glamorous aunt and sort of checking out what this other life is like.

And so seeing, you know, it's like what do they have for breakfast? How does Ellen talk to people? Like how is she, um, running her business? How is she running the lawn care? Like Rachel's just tracking everything. Um, and the more sort of curious she gets. The more that leads her into feeling like, well, I just kind of wanna know what my uncle is talking about when he's on the phone.

Or I'm just like, I've never been let into my aunt and uncle's bedroom because the door is always closed and no one's there. And what would happen if I just like gave it a little peek and the whole time she's justifying. To herself, um, that she's not necessarily doing something wrong, but she also kind of starts to get in over her head as like she wants to be a part of adult.

The adult world and their secrets, and then she kind of finds out a lot more than she bargained for. And there's a little bit of that feeling of like, oh, I wanna give it back. Like the adult world is very complicated. And maybe that's more than she bargained for. 

Zibby: Yeah. She has some clues though, because the adults in her life and in this house are so distracted. Like they keep just like leaving the kid in the backseat and she's like, wait, do they not remember that? She's sitting there and like starting to cook dinner and then leaving all this stuff and she's like, am I supposed to put the mushrooms away? Like, what am I doing here? So I think her, just, her finding her way is in her face constantly. 

Kate: Yeah. 

Zibby: And us as the reader. 

Kate: Yeah. And it is, right. I, you know, I feel for her in those moments where it's hard, especially, you know, when you're like a guest in someone else's home, but it's your family. So our people will be like, oh, make yourself at home. And she's like, but it's not my home.

Like I. Am I like, is it overstepping for her to like finish making dinner while like her aunt and uncle leave, or is that what they're expecting of her and there are so many? Part of it is that like going back to all of these things that are unspoken, it's like there are so many unspoken rules.

Especially in a house like this and with the kind of power like this that she's trying to navigate. But no one comes out and says like, this is how you behave in this kind of echelon of society. So she's trying to figure it out. Um, but she's 17 and she has no idea. Um, and even when she's older, I think she's then realizing like, should I have been left alone for all of that time?

Like, was I old enough to handle that? And I, and I think that. You know, we were talking about like girlhood and adolescence and that transition and it, it's such a both, and like those times when you feel like I'm absolutely an adult, like I should be trusted with these responsibilities. Of course, I can make dinner for my 3-year-old cousin.

And then other times when it's like, this girl is 17, like where are the grownups? 

Zibby: And you technically do this, you put the book together in such an interesting way. So you have Rachel looking back, and then you have these times where you give us little clues that something is ominous and it's about to happen.

Like she'll talk about the second floor of the house and then say, later police will talk about how much we could hear from the second floor. And you're like, what? What do they mean? What is happening here? How did you, from a technical standpoint, structure the book? How did you create that sense of suspense and what was like, what was your whole goal in the book to begin with?

Kate: I love, well, I love talking about structure. I'm like always because that, and I'm so excited to hear you say that because structures feels really important to me. Like. How the whole thing unfolds. And that's kind of, um, that's what makes the book, the book. And I, and I think I knew early on as I was figuring out how to put it together, that I wanted it to have this retrospective component, like this is about an adult world and an adult coming to terms with who she is.

And what mistakes she might have made. Um, and then how to, if it's even possible, to sort of rectify those mistakes later on. And so I knew from the beginning that I wanted to have that kind of dualism. It's one character, but it's almost two because you have adult Rachel and teenage Rachel kind of coming to terms with how they have become who she is. And then of course there's a question of like, all right, how do I actually do that on the page? Um, but having that adult voice come through really allowed me to be like, the Rachel who is telling this story knows what happened. Um, and then that lets her, but she's also sort of walking through the moment being like.

Where did this start? When I arrived in Greenwich, this was how it felt. But this is what sort of developed later on and it allowed me to kind of drop in those moments where like when you're living your own life, you don't know what's significant when you're in the middle of it, but you can look back and be like, that's when I should have known.

Something was happening, or maybe that's when I wish that I had said something or that's when I said something and I wish that I hadn't, you know, it, it all kind of looks different in retrospect and I thought I wanted it to have that quality where, where she can sort of do both of those things at once.

Um, and thinking about then now, like what's the goal, um, of the book and, and a lot of it was like Rachel. Is thinking through all of these things. And that was the kind of thinking that I wanted the book to do on the page and that I wanted the reader to do when they're reading. So everything isn't necessarily wrapped up in like a neat bow with a moral and an answer to give you, um, because Rachel is trying to figure this out and then we are with her on the journey of figuring it it out.

Um, and that kind of gave me a sense of like, how do I wanna stitch this story together so that we are going through this whole process with her? 

Zibby: And it's neat to have a character looking back like that and having older characters in the story. In the flashback that are basically the same age as her now, so that we as the reader can feel like, yes, I remember what it was like when I was this age and that pain or whatever, but I also am sort of relating to the parents who have a sick child and the aunt who's injured and now maybe is getting, you know, abusing some drugs and like, like you can relate to all the characters in the book in, in some way.

And then you're left thinking like, well. What would I do in this situation? 

Kate: Yeah. And that, that really is that question that I was kind of guiding the whole book for me was like w having, wanting to feel like when, when I'm reading this, like when a reader is reading this, like what would I do? What would a reader do?

I think it's really easy to, like, we can always kind of sit back and be like, well I know I would definitely do the right thing always because I'm a good person. Um, and we all wanna say that about ourselves and I am sure that it is entirely true of all of us here. But the reality is. 

Zibby: I dunno about this section.

Kate: There's so many people, you know, we live in a world. That has a lot of problems, um, and where people are not always making the choices that are the best for themselves and the choices that are the best for other people, or sometimes the choices that are the best for one person also wind up hurting somebody else.

And I think because we're. So close to the characters in the book and we're so, like inside Rachel's mind all of the time. It's like we hear the justifications and the, like, her reasoning for things. Um, and it, it kind of as the reader like I. It makes you feel complicit, I think in some ways. Um, and it does.

I wanted to have that. Sometimes it's an uncomfortable question, like what would I do? Um, am I sure that I would necessarily do the right thing? Like when Rachel has this decision that she has to make, um, there's a way in which the decision is very simple and there's also a way in which it's incredibly complicated.

Um, and I think it's. You know, that's what it feels like to be a person. I think that's what it feels like to be alive is that like sometimes things are very difficult and no one comes along and says, oh, this is the moment where you're making a big decision and you should definitely do the right thing here. 'Cause we don't always know. 

Zibby: Have you been in that situation? 

Kate: Not, not, you know, not the way that Rachel is for sure. Um. But I think there's, you know, my hope was that there's something that feels very human and very relatable. Like most of us have not been in Rachel's situation. Most of us do not have an extremely wealthy aunt and uncle who are like, yes, come stay with us for the summer.

Like, we'll take you on vacation. We're like, here's the tab at the country club. Um, and yet we've probably all been in situations. Where we can look back and be like, you know, I hope that I did the right thing, or I hope that what I did didn't hurt somebody else. Even if it's not kind of on the scale of, of what's happening in this book.

Zibby: So you're a debut author, your first book, amazing. Obviously. Great book deal. Beautiful cover. 

Kate: Isn't the cover amazing? I love it so much. 

Zibby: Oh my. I wanna. Frame it. 

Kate: Yes. 

Zibby: And hang it in my house somewhere. Uh, what was the process like? Was this the first novel you ever wrote? Is this like the first one to get published, but you have 10 in a drawer? And what was the whole path to acquisition and publication like? 

Kate: Oh God. I like, like do you have six hours for the podcast? 

Zibby: You have about six. You have like six minutes or like.

Kate: It is, it is a long process and for anyone who you know is in this position, like persistence is the name of the game. Um, this was not my first novel.

It was not the first novel I wrote. It was not the first novel that I tried to get published. It was not the first novel that got like very close to publication. It was almost sort of a shock. Um, when I found out that my editor was interested, 'cause I was like, we've been here before, like it's not gonna happen.

Um, I was already writing another book kind of anticipating like, I don't know what's gonna happen to Greenwich. So we just keep going and then all of a sudden everything changed. Um. I have, you know, other novels I have, I don't know, probably four drawer novels that I won't touch again. I have two other novels that like I still really believe in, um, and think something can happen with.

I have like other books that I'm writing. Um, there's just always a lot of things going on, and I think it's. You know, you, you sort of just keep going. I, I can't even think of any novelists that I know. I'm sure they're out there, but they don't have to tell me who, like get their very first novel published.

You know, it's not like, oh, I, I had an idea for a book and I sat down and I wrote it and I got an agent and then the agent got me an editor and everything was great. I mean, there's just always, uh, I wrote this, it didn't quite work. I started. Something else. I finally finished this. I tried to get an agent.

I didn't get an agent. I got an agent, but that agent, uh, left the industry or, you know, decided they were no longer representing these books. Like a million things happen. Um, but kind of along the way, I started just like clicking and connecting with the right people and finding the people who connect with the work.

I think that's the most important thing is just like, who is really gonna fall in love with the kinds of projects that, that I wanna be writing. And then who is gonna be the champion for, for the work going forward. 

Zibby: But why not just give up? Why not say, okay, forget it. I've got these four books and this isn't gonna sell and da da da. Like, why not? You know? 

Kate: I definitely thought about it, but that the thought of giving up was continuously worse than anything else that could happen if I kept going. So any kind of no that I got or any kind of setback was still like, well, at least I'm doing something and I'm, and I'm writing the books that I wanna write.

And I think that was kind of this core truth that I had to keep coming back to. And I think that always stays with you because even when the book is published, it's. Still, you know, it doesn't mean that every single person in the entire universe is going to love it. Um..

Zibby: But that would be so nice, wouldn't it?

Kate: That would be so nice. And obviously they should, but you know, you still have to know like, well, you keep going anyway. Or you say, you know, this is the project that I really believe in and that I wanna keep writing and. And I kept coming back to that and it was like, well, I could stop, but I have an idea for another book and I wanna write it, so I'm gonna keep doing that.

You know, I just kept thinking, what else am I gonna do? Um, for all of the time, like, writing is so hard, right? And writers always talk about how hard writing is, and it's true. And it's hard and like.

Zibby: And yet get so little sympathy. 

Kate: Yes. And at the same time, like writing is the best, writing is the best thing that I get to do.

And even being in a position where there's a no or something doesn't land the way that I want it to, it's, I always kept coming back to this feeling. It sounds so cheesy, but I just kept being like, but I, but I wanna keep doing this. I get to keep doing this. Um, and sort of holding onto that. Feeling. I think if you're in a position and you're like, oh, I could stop writing and I could save myself all of this heartache and all of these challenges, and wouldn't that feel such, like, such a relief?

I think that's a sign to like, don't do this to yourself. Like you don't have to do this to yourself. Um, but I think if that feels like grief, that you would lose something that that's a sign that you should just keep writing. 

Zibby: So advice for aspiring authors. 

Kate: Yeah, well we definitely, you know, hitting on the persistence.

Um, I love, you know, I love talking about this stuff because it, because it is so hard. I have a whole substack called Ask an Author where people just write in and ask questions. 'cause I was like, I'm getting so many questions about writing all the time. So if anyone has questions, you just like write to me and I will answer them.

I will do my best. Um. So in a, I'm thinking about the persistence when I'm thinking about like what is like a practical, tangible thing. And I think one of the things that really helped me write Greenwich was um, I started setting certain parameters for myself and people will say like, oh, I write some number of words a day.

Um, and I do try to do that and I try to reach a goal so that I'm like always touching a project. But what really changed for me and helped me, I think be able to finish project was I started setting limits. So I was like, I'm not writing more. Than a certain number of words a day. So if I'm on a roll and things are going great and I've hit my, for me, it's usually 2000 words, but it could be anything.

It could be 500, you know, it doesn't have to be that number. If I hit my 2000 words and things are going great and I feel good, and I could keep going, I don't. I stop because then the next day I'm so excited to get back to it and I'm in the groove and I know what I wanna keep working on, and so it suddenly feels like this thing that I wanna do.

Whereas if I just work and work and work until I'm completely burned out and exhausted, then I don't really wanna turn on my computer again because it feels like, oh, this is gonna be so hard. And so kind of finding these little ways to like trick myself or kind of. Set myself up for success to say writing is something that makes me feel good.

This book is a book that I wanna be writing, and so I'm gonna keep coming back to it. And whether that means like I don't do too much, so that I'm still excited, or I try to sort of end on a good note for the day, or I will like write into the next scene. So if I finish a chapter. I will write the next sentence of the next chapter, or even half a sentence.

It doesn't even have to be a full sentence because then I know exactly where to pick up the next day. So it's like little tricks to say I have to keep going, and now I've set myself up to be able to keep going. I love it. If that helps anybody. It helped me, so there you go. But also, if that is like not what works for you, if you're like, oh God, what a nightmare, then like, don't do it. Because I think part of it is also saying, no. 

Zibby: Yeah we're all gonna do it. 

Kate: Yeah. 

Zibby: Because you said..

Kate: Right.

Zibby: And that is it. 

Kate: That's it. 

Zibby: Yes. 

Kate: And like the ruler of what happens, because so much of it is just figuring out like what works for you. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Kate: And some of that might be what worked for somebody else and some of that might be like, oh no, that would never work for me.

People, I think you can feel a lot of pressure to be like, well this one writer like drafts everything by hand, so I should draft everything by hand. And it's like, no, 'cause I can't read my own handwriting, so I'm not gonna do that. Yeah. Um, so you just figure it out. 

Zibby: Amazing. Well, Kate, congratulations on Greenwich. So delicious. So fun. 

Kate: Thank you so much. 

Zibby: Congrats. 

Kate: This is really fun to be here. 

Zibby: Yay.