Author Lauren Grodstein returns to the podcast to discuss her heartwarming, emotionally attuned, and intricately crafted new novel, A DOG IN GEORGIA. What begins as the story of a middle-aged woman impulsively traveling to the country of Georgia to help find a lost dog turns into a deeper exploration of marriage, midlife, identity, and the search for meaning. Lauren shares her love of animals, how her time in Georgia shaped the novel, and the ways humor, food, and even politics weave through the book. She and Zibby also dive into big questions about purpose, freedom, and what it means to live a meaningful life—while laughing about midlife chaos, martinis, and the irresistible pull of dog videos.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Lauren. Thanks for coming back on Totally Booked with Zibby to talk about A Dog In Georgia, a novel. Congratulations. 

Lauren: Thank you. 

Zibby: So we were just chit chatting about you're coming for the Summer Reads party, and when we did that, everybody went around and talked about what their book was about, and I was surprised to hear your description in that context versus reading the book.

So tell me how you pitch it versus what it is.

Lauren: Okay. Yeah. 

Zibby: Because I, maybe I missed the underlying big message, the metaphor of what the book was and took it at face value. I don't know. You tell me. 

Lauren: Yeah, I mean, so the book is really two things at once. It's about a woman who, you know, is approximately my age and approximately my place.

Her kids are a little older than mine, but like, you know, spent her life doing a lot of different things and her husband's much crappier than mine. Let let that be known. But after, you know, you had another infidelity and yet. Another kind of just, just grueling disappointment. She escapes into what she's been escaping to forever, which are animal videos, which is what I do like, like I, I scroll through all of those, you know, like, like Rescue Cow finds best friend in curd of goats or something, and I just, I.

Find my blood pressure goes down and I just like really feel more at peace when I'm looking at animals and not say the New York Times. Um, and I've also always been a big animal lover and I volunteer, uh, at our local shelter. And I live with a lot of animals. 

Zibby: So, wait, how, how many animals do you live with?

How many retired? 

Lauren: I mean, I live, I have, so, oh, this is my dogs that are made this picture. These are my two dogs. I have a rescue cat. All three are, uh, other people were originally, we, we ended up adopting all of them from either neighbors who couldn't keep them or shelters. So, uh, I love animals. And so part of this story was just a woman who decides spur of the moment to go somewhere, a place she's never been before to do something.

To her is radical, which is help a community find a beloved lost dog. And the fact that this community happens to be in the country of Georgia, a place she's barely ever heard of is sort of secondary to the fact that she's been watching them on YouTube and she knows that she can help them. And so she just sort of spontaneously.

Books a flight and goes, and that's one part of the story. But the other part of the story is what she finds when she gets to Georgia, which is a country that is, it's very small, it's very beautiful. It's, uh, very close to Russia. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Lauren: And it has been very, very dominated by Russia for as long as Russia's been around.

Georgia's older than Russia, but you know, it's been invaded and taken over and absorbed. And right now in Georgia, two parts of the country have been totally occupied since 2008. So like let's say you wanna visit your grandfather in South Ocia, you have to leave your part of Georgia, go into Russia, get a Visa and go visit your grandfather, right?

In 2008, Soviet troops surrounded the capitol for six days. Like they could have run the whole place over much more easily than they've run Ukraine over. But this is something that our heroine knows nothing about. She just thinks she's there to like find a dog and be a heroine and do something adventurous and go back to her life.

But what she finds instead is A, is a family of people who are really torn up because they know their country is leaning towards Russia and all they want is freedom. And they understand because they've been there before that. When you lose freedom, when you lose, not just democracy, but, but when you lose the ability to make your own choices, you really lose your future.

You lose your children's future, you lose an ability to live the life. Like, like you deserve as a human being, which is to make choices and to make mistakes and to stay, uh, free right out of jail, and able to voice her opinions. And so when she's in Georgia, this, by the way, is a terrible elevator pitch.

It's going on way too long. 

Zibby: No, I love it. You can just talk the whole time. I'm gonna just relax and hang out and this in my favorite podcast. 

Lauren: When she's in Georgia, you know, she, she starts to understand not just like her, her marriage and her place in the world, but also like broad more broadly, like who she is as an American.

What the world expects of Americans, what she can possibly offer these people besides, you know, the drone that she thought would help find the dog, and that gets confiscated immediately. And what she can learn. And of course, and the book is taking place in spring of 2023. So I know this is not a political podcast.

I'm sure you have guests that represent a wide spectrum, but to me that the Trump presidency, especially the second one, is an, is a, a real, is a real, uh, tragedy and also a warning sign for, for where we could be. But in 2023 it was sort of a joke, kind of like everyone thought Trump was a little sad, like he had this like low energy, I'm gonna be president again thing. And I was like, no, you're not. And our heroin, Amy didn't take it particularly seriously, but then in, when she's in Georgia and she sees what the risks of autocracy really are and how people are willing to put their lives on the line to stop it, she starts thinking about why she never has, why she wouldn't, how comfortable her life has always been, and how she assumes it always will be.

So the book is really more than I think anything I've ever written. Is about me and my own kind of, you know, obsessions and interests and worries and, um, there's a lot of food in it 'cause I like to eat a lot. And, um, there's a little bit of sex in it, which is the first time I've done that. Dad can't read it.

That's too, and, um, yeah, I mean that's, that's, that's, that's what the book is about. And I, I think the reason that there are two different pitches is, 'cause I just spoke for like three minutes about it. And really you can either say like, you know, middle-aged mom goes on an adventure to save a dog. Or you can say, American woman learns about her place in the world.

And those two ideas, you know what I mean? It takes a long time to explain how they could both fit in one book. 

Zibby: Totally. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Zibby: By the way, I need to have you, I should have done a joint podcast with you and Nina Stibe. Do you know her? 

Lauren: No. 

Zibby: She wrote Winter London took the dog about her journey. 

Lauren: Oh. 

Zibby: With her dog To London and middle age after like debating whether or not to leave her husband.

Except it's like, oh, it's like the British version. 

Lauren: I have to read this book first. 

Zibby: You, you have to like swap Yeah. Books. Anyway. I should have, I'll connect you separately, but anyway, but I love this, this notion of like, first of all, where are dogs? Take us, right? Yeah. And the conversations that they get us into and our love for them, and love for what we're passionate about in general, right?

Yeah. Like, I love when you're not, you, when the character is like scrolling and the, the fundraising person calls and she's like, she's like, oh, you've already given $300. And you're like, oh, did I already give? I just keep giving. I just like, I have to keep giving and doing this. Um, which is so funny. And then she literally just goes to this woman's house, books a ticket, I mean.

It's so outrageous, and yet it's almost like where are the place that we are all driven to for various reasons and for independent reasons, for everybody is so out there. This is just the expression of that. 

Lauren: Totally, totally. It's funny, originally in that line it she'd already given $1,500 because. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm.

Lauren: And my age was like, calm down, like 1500 is way too much. I was like, is it? Oh, which is not, I do not wanna suggest that I just have $1,500 randomly sitting around to give away to animal rescues. But I have been known to perhaps overdo it if my heartstrings are pulled on by like the right. You know, video, like, I, I just, I can't help it, you know?

I see an animal suffering and, uh, even if it's, you know, a thousand miles away, I just suddenly start opening my Google wallet. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh. Well, next time I'll start forwarding those videos to you when I see them. Can I read like this really funny page in the book? Do you mind? 

Lauren: Sure. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh, I'll, your sense of humor is like so awesome and.

It doesn't even really matter what you're writing about. Like you're just so funny with this like dry wit type of thing. Okay. So this is sort of a, just a scene of midlife ness, if you will. Um, and now what to say about who she was now, how she felt now. The crazy mood swings. The faltering marriage, the trip to Georgia, which was insane, and she was almost certainly perimenopausal, which was something she would never talk about or even think about.

Her body was a secret she liked to keep from herself. Did you ever cheat on Judd? Never. Amy said, I didn't think so. Lynn said, would you ever, I doubt it. It's hard to imagine a man who would make me want to, even after all these years, she finished the dregs of her martini. Isn't that crazy? The problem is, Amy, if I may, Lynn said, you may not.

The problem is that you still think Judd is some kind of star. Judd is the husband. You're still a star. I'm not gonna curse. You're still a Starer Lynn. Cut it out. You still feel like you owe him something for marrying you when frankly, it's the other way around. He owes you. You've stood by him all these years, despite all his missteps.

Amy lifted her finger for another martini. That's not exactly how it's been. You don't owe him anything. I'm telling you, men who are married live an average of eight years longer than unmarried men. They owe their wives everything. They owe us their lives. I'm not a star ever. Do you make his doctor's appointments? His dentist appointments? Did you raise his son still raising him? I mean, I know you love that kid, but you took on an awful lot of work for somebody else's. Someone else's baby. Come on, Amy said feeling her neck prickle. Don't say that. Lynn was a mean drunk, which Amy often forgot until it was too late, but she took it down a notch.

All I'm saying is you should make that bitch pay.

So fun. 

Lauren: Yeah. This is also the first book I have. This is like a cursing book. It's, I don't know about you Z, but like, you know, like do you find, like after your first book, when like, did you get like mean reviews on good reads from people who do not like cursing at all? 

Zibby: I get mean reviews from my mom. 

Lauren: Oh sure, sure.

Zibby: So I show her the fir, I show her the draft, and she always is like, there's too much cursing. Mm-hmm. So then I always go back and take a lot of it out. 

Lauren: Yeah. Yeah. 

Zibby: I don't know. I mean, I could just curse, but I don't know. I feel like I shouldn't somehow. 

Lauren: No, I feel like a little bit of decorum. Right. Let's pretend I like, we still live in a world that where like manners matter.

Let's, yeah. 

Zibby: But I, I think that this page and like the whole book really touches on like, what, what should we be satisfied with? Like, is this as good as it gets? Should it be better? Is this what we deserve? How do we know? And so we turn to our friends and do they know either? No. Like what do we, what do we do with that?

Lauren: I know, and we're so lucky, like in the span of the universe, my son and I, my son, we were walking around and my son likes to sort of drop philosophical questions and he was like, do you think it's better to be you today? Or like Louis the 14th. Right in like Louis the 14th times in France. And I was like, well, on the one hand, Louis the 14th did have like a lot of power and that's good and like a really dope house and that's also good, but like I have.

Antibiotics and toilets that flush and like good water pressure and coffee. You know what I mean? Like there has never been a better time to be alive for many of us, not for everyone. I understand the incredible privilege of being able to say that, but for many, many, many people, you'd rather be you than the King of France, right?

16. In the 16 hundreds because you have all sorts of things. You'll live to be 90. That guy won't, right? If, if things work out. And you will do so smelling good and flushing a toilet. So then the question becomes, if all of these existential worries are taken away from us, where is our meal gonna come from?

Will our babies survive until they turn five? Will we, you know what I mean? Like, will, will we be able to keep our houses warm and safe and keep the marauders out? And when, when all of that existential stuff is taken away, we're left with our big brains with lots of stuff to think about. And one of them is the me is meaning, right?

How do we make meaning? What is the meaning we should be making? How do we make the most of the incredibly precious gift of life that we've been given for however long we've been given it? And I think while those are incredibly powerful questions and questions that we should ask ourselves, they're also just the wor, they're paralyzing, right?

Zibby: Yep. 

Lauren: I mean, I think one of the reasons it's hard when your kids leave is that you're suddenly confronted with these questions. What's next? How do I continue to make meaning? For so long? I made meaning through raising, in my case, these two little people who I adore and whose happiness makes me happy, but they're go, they're, you know, they're, they're, they're shuffling off and now I'm confronted with myself and the next half.

Zibby: Yep. 

Lauren: And it's, it's, it's a, there's a reason, right, that all this midlife stuff is a trope. There's a reason that people keep writing books about it. It's like the, this huge question mark that hangs over those of us who are lucky enough to get here, and I don't really know what the answer is. I spend a lot of time on dog websites, I think for the reason.

Zibby: I get it. I feel like the stretch of time feels like, like once I got out of school, it was all a question mark, right? Like where summer break and you know, where's the structure of life? But then you have the kids structure to rely on, right? But then that structure also gets ripped apart and I'm like.

What happens between the kids schedule and like maybe the grandkids schedule? If I'm lucky. 

Lauren: I know, I know. We should be so lucky. 

Zibby: We should be so lucky. I know. If they even want me around and, you know, all that. 

Lauren: Yeah, right. Oh yeah. No, I'm gonna bribe like crazy. You're, 'cause you know, I've told my kids many times, I'm really, I am in this for the grandkids, so like, but I, I just, I, I don't want to waste the luck I've been given, right?

Zibby: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

Lauren: Like, I don't want it. To have been for nothing. And since I'm not religious in that way, like I don't believe in heaven or hell, like, I believe that my purpose on life will take place during my life. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Lauren: So like, what do I do to make my time on this Earth matter? And I've told myself like it's writing books, but now I'm not so sure.

'cause like, I don't know, after seven books, it's, it's easy to discount like, how much does it matter anyway. I find that teaching is really helpful and, and, and raising another generation of writers is really helpful. I find that just learning more. It's not a way of directly impacting anything, but at least it makes me a little bit smarter about the world I live in.

And I think one of the reasons I've retreated into animals is because the, the A to B of helping an animal is so clear, whereas the A to b to helping another human being is less clear. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Lauren: But like, if you help an animal, an animal is happy, right? 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Lauren: Like you, you, you just, you, you feed an animal, you rescue an animal.

You help get an animal adopted. It's less murky in a way, and I, I really respond to just like clear incentive. Like I have done something good, I feel good. And that's very much like my character in this novel. 

Zibby: Totally. I get it. Yeah. Well, I feel like the character. Brings up all the things that we're all thinking of all the time.

Yeah. And it's just, it was just a way for you to showcase all of that. 

Lauren: Yeah, that's what it, that's honestly, that's, you can't say that as an elevator pitch. Like, well, this is really a book about me working out my stuff, but like in a way it kind of is. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Lauren: Plus I work at Rutgers and I was so lucky they gave me two generous grants to travel.

Zibby: Oh, wow. 

Lauren: And. So I was able to go to Georgia. So the first time I went I brought my son and we volunteered with dogs and it was incredible. And I thought like there's probably, there's a novel here for sure. It was right around when all these protests started. I mean, protests are happening all the time.

There are a lot of protests. And then I got another grant later, and when I went back it was even more so and you know, I mean, I just got to go to this part of the world that's just, it's so beautiful. It's so similar to us, and yet they have so many obvious, there are clear differences too. And the, the ability to just be on the other side of the planet and learn about them was, was great.

So yeah, people have asked me. Why Georgia and I don't have any really excellent response, except that like I had their food once and really liked it. And ever since then I've wanted to go try it in person. 

Zibby: I can see a friend walking down the street with you and like you going into, I don't know, some cuisine.

Some restaurant being like, no, no, no, you can't travel there. Like, don't even try this food. 

Lauren: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Exactly. 

Zibby: Don't even, you're not even, don't get tempted. You're not allowed to, you're not allowed to taste it. 

Lauren: Right, right, right. Yeah. 

Zibby: I saw on Instagram that you were, um, you know, you're a read with Jenna Pick for your last book and all of that.

What has that been like and how have all this, these reunions been, and, you know, going back on the show and everything? Tell me about that. 

Lauren: Yeah, I mean, it's such a lucky thing, right? And you, I can't discount the sheer luck of it. It was incredibly exciting. I found out about it in February and the book came out in November, so that's like nine months, which is human gestation time.

So I keep this for nine months, as you can tell. I like to talk. That was not easy, but I did it. And then the book, you know, and then what was so great about it is that that book was about this, this. I think under known archival project that took place in the Warsaw Ghetto and for a year and a half Zibby, I traveled for a year and a half.

I was all over the US and Canada talking about this archive and, and because the archive was this real thing and people, you know, buried it underground and then often died having no idea if anyone would ever find out what they did. And then through a weird series of events, got to this archive and read it and then wrote this book about it.

And then Jenna picked it and she gave me this megaphone to not only go on the Today Show, but to go all around the country telling people about this archive that people died not knowing if anyone would ever know about it was incredible. That was incredible. And then, you know, she really. It develops a sort of coie of writers.

I got, I've gotten to meet some writers that I just adore, books I adore who I adore as people. And every so often she calls us up and is like, Hey, we're gonna do something. You wanna do it? Or, Hey, you know, we're gonna re re reunite in Nashville, or we're gonna do, can you come? And if I can, I do. And I mean, first of all, it's a hoot for me.

I will never knock. Think it's wild to be on the Today Show and get a call from like some great niece, great cousin or something is like, what? That's always fun, but also. Of course I'm so grateful. Right. But like, as the connecting point to all these really interesting writers, it's been fun. It's been really fun.

And it's not a one and done, like once you, you're part of it, you sort of stay part of it. So yeah. And to answer the question that so many people have asked me, she reads the books that girl reads the books. She reads, I don't know how she reads all these books. She reads the books. She's like an energizer bunny.

She doesn't stop and she reads the books. She knew my book inside and out. It was very, very moving for me. 

Zibby: Oh, that's amazing. 

Lauren: Yeah. Yeah. 

Zibby: That's awesome. Yeah. Well, congrats. I love it. And I love just seeing. All of the joy and all of you guys together and it's very fun to watch. Very fun to watch. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Zibby: Okay, so what is your next project?

Do you have one? Finding the meaning of life, Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs and all of that? 

Lauren: Yeah. Now that I figured that out. So whenever I find like the world gets too, um, topsy-turvy, I like to hide in my attic office and work. So I've just been sort of, I, I, I would love to describe something I can't really, don't really know, but I've been just sort of working out the potential for a novel, you know, about, again, like trying to live a life in a democracy that feels wave wavering, that's not a word, but like sort of a little unsteady and, uh.

What we owe each other as citizens and what we owe each other as Americans. There's no plot. There's not even really, you know, there are a couple of characters who could change completely, but I have found that a great way for me to work out my anxiety is to, is to write. And so I've been doing a lot of that.

Zibby: Amazing. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Zibby: And do you have any advice for firing authors? 

Lauren: Always. Yeah. Which is three things, you know, which are like the most basic, but I think that they are easy to ignore. So the first one, read, read, read, read, read, read good books. Read fiction. I meet young writers all the time and I ask them what they read, not all the time, and like either they're not really reading fiction at all or they're getting a lot of their inspiration from like movies and tv.

I have nothing against movies and tv, but like learn from the people who do it well learn from really good writers who've written really good books. So that's thing one. Thing two is if, if, unless you are, are quite, um, you know, lucky or something, like it's good to have a job, you have not failed. If you are not living off your writing, have a job.

Why? Because it, as a teacher of mine once said, it is very hard to write if you're worried about keeping the lights on, have a job. Build writing time into that job. And then one day, if you're lucky to not even need that job anymore, you will still have the habits you learned when you were balancing a job and everything else, and making time to write, right.

Keep the lights on. That'll make it easier to write. And the third is to develop whatever practice works for you, but do it every day. Some very annoying person once told me that if I really wanted to work out more, I would. I'm like, oh, okay. But I do feel that way about writing like make it part of your routine.

You know that icky feeling you have. If you haven't brushed your teeth, try to cultivate the same icky feeling. If you haven't written, and it doesn't have to be all day, it doesn't even have to be an hour, but every day, find the 20 minutes in your life where you can write. If you don't do that pretty soon, a long stretch of time could go on, and it turns out you're not writing at all anymore.

And that's too bad. So like. I, you know, get a job, read and write. Those are, I guess, my, my three pieces of advice. 

Zibby: Amazing. Well, if you solve the question of what we are supposed to do. 

Lauren: Yeah. Yeah. I'll let you know. 

Zibby: I will give you a call, keep me posted and I can, uh, internalize that as well. And in the meantime, thank you for the sense of humor and exploration and also the transportation really to a place I've never been and will never probably go to.

So that was also super interesting. Yeah. Really enjoyable and thought provoking. So thank you. I'm

Lauren: so glad. Thank you, Zabi, for having me on again. 

Zibby: Pleasure. 

Lauren: Okay. 

Zibby: Thanks Lauren. Take care.