Zibby interviews author Lynda Cohen Loigman about her charming, quirky, and utterly satisfying second-chance love story, THE LOVE ELIXIR OF AUGUSTA STERN. Lynda talks about her protagonist, 79-year-old Augusta Stern, who relocates to a Florida retirement community and runs into the man who broke her heart 60 years prior. She also describes her novel’s flashbacks to the 1920s, where we learn about Augusta’s family pharmacy and her great-aunt Esther’s unconventional remedies. This leads to a conversation about aging, women in medicine, and the trend of women’s medical issues being dismissed. Lynda also talks about her writing process and her exciting book tour!

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome back, Linda. So happy to have you here to talk about The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern. Congratulations. Congratulations. 

Lynda: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to chat with you. 

Zibby: Yeah, you too.

I loved the world that you created in this book and getting to be sort of inside the pharmacist back room and just like living in this time and with this family and everything. So just tell listeners what your book is about. 

Lynda: Sure. So when the story starts, Augusta Stern is 79 years old and she is a lifelong pharmacist.

And she is sort of forced to retire from her job because she's been unfortunately lying about her age. And we can talk about that later, where that little nugget came from. But her niece convinces her to move down to Florida and to a retirement community, as one does. And on her first day there, she runs into Irving Rifkin, the delivery boy from her father's pharmacy, and the man who broke her heart.

60 years earlier. So she is horrified to see him. She is not happy to see him at all. She absolutely loathes every, you know, everything about him. And so in order to find out why, and to sort of see what happened between them, I take you back to 1920s Brooklyn, back to the world of the pharmacy, back to the Stern family and great aunt Esther, who comes to stay with them.

And you sort of figure out what happened back and, you know, back and forth. It's a dual timeline story. So it's a lot of fun. 

Zibby: And I read in your author's note, which I didn't even find till, I mean, obviously it was the end, but I was like, Oh, I should have read this at the beginning. 

Lynda: But anyway, I read I love an author's note.

Like I love, I really love one. So I'm like an author's note freak. I love to write them. 

Zibby: Yes. I love to, I love to read them. And I've always loved the backstory. So you were with your dad at his nursing home imagining what would happen if an old relationship of his were to walk in. 

Lynda: Yeah, the inspiration was sort of like twofold.

So part of it was I had always sort of wanted to write a pharmacy setting because my husband's great grandmother was a pharmacist. It was amazing. She graduated from pharmacy school like in 1921 and she lied about her age. So she used to doctor her certificate because you could do that then. Remember whiteout?

Like when whiteout was a thing? I remember whiteout. Yeah, whiteout was a thing. So, and actually, like, I'm going to show you, I have a little show and tell. This is her mortar and pestle that my mother in law let me, lets me keep on my desk for a little while now while I was writing this story. So I wanted to write a story about her, but I had no idea exactly, like, what.

And then in 2021, I was moving my dad to an assisted living facility after And like, I just sat with him in the lobby and listened to everybody chat, which is where he loves to be. He loves to be there. And my mom died like almost 17 years ago. So for 15 years, my dad dated and he like never stopped looking for love, like for companionship and sitting in that, you know, sitting in the lobby with all of these people, like there was drama and there was intrigue and they're like, you know, they were flirting.

Like it was crazy. It was like being in a middle school cafeteria, only it was. in an assisted living lobby. So the inspiration came from sort of all those places. 

Zibby: Both my grandmothers were in assisted living sort of at the end of the last like, you know, portions of their lives. And it was, Such a thing. I mean, my grandmother, she's like, Oh, this man always comes to my door.

He dates everybody. I don't want to be part of his, you know, issue. Like, no, no, no. Like, I'm not. It was so funny. I mean, yeah. The voices, like, really 

Lynda: hit you. You know, when you hear all of those people chattering, it's like, and you remember your grandparents voices or, you know, I'm older than you. So my dad is like that.

It was that age. And so you just, you hear all the longing in their voice and sort of like the lack of filter. And it just, it, there's a lot of humor there. And there's a lot of drama there. And there's just, you know, And I found a lot of stuff to write about. 

Zibby: Yeah. I heard some crazy statistic that like STDs are on the rise in nursing homes.

Did you hear that? 

Lynda: Oh yeah. There were articles about it. Right? There was some article about that like in Florida or something like. 

Zibby: Yes. 

Lynda: I don't know. 

Zibby: Yes. Yes. 

Lynda: I've heard that. I've heard that too. Yeah. We don't need to talk about it. 

Zibby: Okay. No, we're not going to talk about it. 

Lynda: But yeah, I've heard about that.

Zibby: Well, let's go back to the old setting in the first place. Because that was It's such an interesting world and even with the magic chicken soup that like comes into the book, which of course every time I get sick my mother is like, it's medicinal, just chicken soup, you know, and the, the pounding on the door and you know, the middle of the night demands and setting boundaries and how it's, you know, the pharmacist was the source of all the secrets in the community. Like it was a really important role to have. Talk a little bit about that. 

Lynda: I mean, I, so when I thought about this book, I started reading memoirs of pharmacists and I spoke to a lot of pharmacists. I'm really lucky in my town, there's a local pharmacy that's not a chain and like, it's called Drug Mart.

Drug, shout out to Drug Mart in Millwood, New York. Um, and they, like, the pharmacist there is a super nice guy and I said, like, do you know any older pharmacists who I might be able, like, who's the oldest pharmacist I could speak with? And he said, you can talk to my father, who still works. And he was, like a stock boy and delivery boy and a pharmacist in Brooklyn.

It was a little, it was a little later than Augusta Stern because Augusta Stern, it's 1920s Brooklyn, so he was not around for 1920s Brooklyn. And I read these memoirs and that was where I really understood that, you know, where the pharmacist was. Really like your, your priest, your rabbi, your confessor, your therapist, your keeper of secrets.

It was a very special role in the community because people didn't go to doctors all the time. Then, you know, you had a problem. You didn't go to the doctor. You went to the pharmacist and you asked the pharmacist. So they, and they knew a lot and they kept a lot of secrets. And that's something that becomes sort of an issue with Augusta and her father.

Cause when she's young, she shows such an interest in his field. And he says to her, like, if I let you sort of shadow me and I let you be here in this back room, the prescription room where the, where everything is being made and people talk to me. You can't ever tell anyone what you hear. 

Zibby: Yeah. I think I Dogg.

Lynda: It's a sacred sort of trust. Yeah. 

Zibby: Yeah. He said in this store, people speak to me in confidence. He said they trust that whatever they disclose to me will not be revealed to anyone else. Whatever you hear, whatever you learn about a customer is never ever to be repeated. If you break this rule, there will be no second chance.

As he spoke the words and then he goes on and says being a pharmacist is more than powders and pills sometimes it means keeping other people's secrets. 

Lynda: Yeah. 

Zibby: Love that. 

Lynda: Yeah, so it it becomes an issue for Augusta you know at certain points in the book and It's a difficult Sort of balance because she's caught between her father and her father's way of doing things Which is very regimented and very scientific and then the way that this great aunt who comes to stay with them does things So Esther is that is that person and she comes to stay with them because Augusta's mother dies and in sort of like an ironic terrible twist of fate her mother dies of Diabetes, which was a very common, you know People died used to die of diabetes because before insulin was invented People died, you know, they starved to death, basically, and so she dies just before insulin becomes widely manufactured and popular.

And that was kind of a cruel thing to do on my part, like, as an author, but, you know, we, it, it was just to show here is this man, poor Solomon Stern, who has every possible medicine at his disposal and nothing, there is nothing that can save his wife. And so that is just a heartbreaking scene. It's a heartbreaking idea, but I wanted to include it.

And then of course, without his wife there, the house starts to fall apart and Great Aunt Esther comes to stay and she sort of swoops in. And she is this old world, Sort of character has been in the United States for a long time. Sort of going from relative to relative. But she's an immigrant and she has her own way of doing things and she dresses like in sack cloths.

You know, she, sorry, I forgot to turn on the turn off disturb. She dresses, you know, in these terrible like terrible dresses. And she's just always sort of making her concoctions. And when people in the store. are not healed by whatever it is that Solomon Stern can offer. She sort of gives them a wink and a nod and she says, come upstairs with me.

Cause of course the family lives over the store and she has the stuff that she's making in her kitchen. And when you said that about chicken soup and how your mother said it was medicinal, there's like a phrase that people would call chicken soup, Jewish penicillin. And so when I, when I was thinking about that, I was thinking, you know, what would it be that Esther would give to people that would heal them, and I figured it would be chicken soup that she would doctor in like sort of mysterious ways.

So that became, that became the, the main potion kind of that she uses. 

Zibby: I actually, I know it was a bit cruel, but I, I really did love that you put that about penicillin. I mean, not penicillin with about insulin, because I realize that about diabetes. And, you know, my husband, Kyle, his mom died of COVID. And I know that when the vaccine came out, like just after it was so frustrating it's cause it's like, Oh my gosh, like life comes so much down to timing and it's so unfair at times.

So I'm sure a lot of people can relate to that in various ways. 

Lynda: I think so. It's yeah. Yeah. I mean, with all, I mean, you had the perfect, that's the perfect example, you know? And It was just, I remember seeing that, you know, I mean, you and I have known each other for a long time and it was so, such a painful thing and I mean, to watch and to see, and it happened that way for so many families, you know, and it's just heartbreaking.

Zibby: It's heartbreaking. On the other hand, there were times in the book where medicine does work, even when you feel like it doesn't. And, can I talk about who? I mean, it was from Irving when he was younger. Okay, Irving, when he was younger, went through this horrific bout of illness. And it looked like perhaps he wasn't going to make it.

And Augusta was so upset about it. And, and, you know, just the frustration that and helplessness you feel when, Medicine can't fix things. Like we're all sort of under this belief that like medicine can fix everything, but really it cannot, obviously. And that made the fast forward story in real life like so interesting as you kind of take us through that at the same time as you develop that new relationship, fast forwarding, and then sort of catch us up to what happens, which was amazing.

Tell me about how, how to do that with like, from a craft standpoint, with the pacing and all of that, because you take us through the present day, you take us through the past, and you make it so that there's like a reveal that, I mean, it's, it's really great the way it happened. Did you have to plot that out?

Like, how do you do that? 

Lynda: I'm really not a great outliner, or I sort of So this is a dual timeline story, and people have different ways of doing dual timelines. This is my second dual timeline. After the first one, I vowed I would never do another one because they're really difficult. Because precisely what you're saying, the plotting, just figuring out the structure of it.

When I write. Any book, I write it from the beginning to the end in the order that you read it. I can't do it any other way. I really like my books to follow, it's part of writing the character for me. Like, I like to see how the character develops. I can't tell you necessarily in the beginning. And all of the things that contribute to the character's identity, just who they are.

It's sort of, it's like a, like a snowball, you know, it picks up along the way. You know, like, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger as I go along. So when I write a dual timeline, I write it also in the order that you read it. And that is very challenging because a lot of people will write one timeline then the other and chop it up and put it together.

And for me, I really need to write it all out and see when are those dramatic moments that I want to sort of leave a tiny cliffhanger and then move you to the next, move you to the other timeline. So it's back and forth. And it takes a long time. That's why I'm a slow writer. I'm a really slow writer. I'm not, I mean, I can't.

Zibby: You're not that slow a writer. You've been on this podcast, like, I mean, you've had three books come out in the last couple years. Four books, and..

Lynda: I don't know, it feels slow. Right now, I'm, right now, I'm kind of, I'm struggling with my next one. But it feels slow, but it, I mean, I kind of start outlining midway through, like I know where I want it to end up, but things come as I go along and I just sort of start making lists.

And the further I get into the book, and I'm sure you feel this too, like when you're three quarters of the way through a book, writing it, you're like, You're like, I got to wrap all this up, what's going to happen? And then you, like, you have, you start paying more attention to the pacing and to that as you go along because you need to finish.

You need to get out everything you want to get out. And that can be a challenge. So I don't outline in the beginning, but by the end of the book, I have a very detailed like list of all the things that have to happen. And that's how I kind of go around. That's how, I don't know. That's how it works out.

Zibby: Yeah. Impressed. Totally impressed. Well, I loved, I mean, this reminded me so much of my grandparents when they were younger and like the communal pool and, I mean, it just really took me back. I actually ran away once in their little retirement community to the pool, which is around the corner. Yeah. It was my biggest rebellion of, you know, under.

Lynda: That's so funny. Cause when I was young, I once ran away and I ran to my high school football field, which was like, I could walk to from my house. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Lynda: And it was so, and that was my biggest rebellion. And of course there were no phones, right? So they had to drive around and look for us. 

Zibby: Exactly. Yeah. 

Lynda: And like, you'd be driving around like shouting your name out the car window.

Zibby: They just came around with their golf cart. I mean, I was literally around the corner. 

Lynda: My mother was driving around the neighborhood screaming my name out of the car. Aw. It was really embarrassing. It was the embarrassment that made me go home. Like, I just didn't want her driving around anymore. 

Zibby: I think I ran away because I really wanted, like, a shirt from Desperately Seeking Susan or there was like something Madonna related, but anyway.

Lynda: Oh, I ran away because of a boy. So there you go. 

Zibby: No, I was much younger. I was young. I was like nine or something. Okay. So in addition to the Love Elixir coming out, I have roped you into this On Being Jewish Now anthology with constant emails and demands. 

Lynda: Which I love. No, it's really, it's so special. It's so special.

Zibby: Can you talk a little about your essay and what, like what you wrote for it and why you said yes? 

Lynda: Yeah, so, I, Zibby and I are both part of, I feel funny speaking for you, Zibby and I are both part of a group called Artists Against Anti Semitism, and it was Zibby's actually, I think it was your idea, I'm pretty sure it was your idea, to have people write essays, not political in any way, about what it's like for Jewish artists right now, or anybody really, but I think it's mostly artists who contributed, and it was really easy for me to write that essay, actually, because I am Jewish, I'm proud to be Jewish, and I write Jewish books, whatever that means.

My books are not about the Holocaust, they're not about the war, they're not about anything like that. They're just, people say write what you know, and I'm Jewish, so I wrote about, I write about Jewish families, mostly. And my first book was a post war book, whatever. But when I wrote that first book, honestly, I didn't know I wrote historical fiction.

I didn't know I wrote Jewish fiction until Amazon, until all the Amazon categories told me so. And then I started to wonder with my second book, you know, and then my third, The Matchmaker's Gift, which was probably my most Jewish book, because it had a lot of Yiddish and like old world kind of phrases.

And I started to wonder, like, am I? When The Matchmaker's Gift, it did really well, but it didn't, I thought it was going to be like my big breakout book, you know, like I thought it was going to do something different from the other ones, really different, and when it didn't, I had like my doubts, like am I doing something wrong, am I, should I not be writing Jewish books, should I, should I be trying to appeal to a broader audience, am I being pigeonholed, like what, what, what am I doing wrong, I just went down that sort of rabbit hole of doubt, which a lot of artists do for a lot of different reasons.

Whatever you are, wherever you come from, you have that. And then October 7th happened. And then I just didn't have any doubts anymore. Cause I was, you know, it just changed how I felt about success, in a time of war, success is being alive, right? So it changed how I felt about so many things. And, I was, you know, my books are about joyful things and just, they're about Jewish people, but they're just about life.

And I hope, you know, if, if the purpose of reading, To me, it is to spread empathy, to cultivate empathy. I hope that my books can do that because you read a book about a Jewish person who's just like you, then maybe it's not such a mysterious or controversial thing. You know, so that, that's kind of what my essay is about.

Well, that's exactly what my essay is about. That's exactly what my essay is about. Full spoiler, you don't even need to read it anymore, but still buy the book. 

Zibby: You still need to read it. 

Lynda: But everyone else's essays will be new to you and to me, and I think it's just, I don't know, I just think it's a great thing, so I'm, I'm really excited about it.

It's, it's a little hard for me because I would love to be you going, doing the events with you, but my book is coming out. So my whole October is completely, I'm not even, I'm just gone. So that's a little bit frustrating for me because I'd love to be with everybody talking about that book. But there's only so many books I can talk about in one day.

Although you seem to be able to be everywhere at once. I need your time machine. Why don't you lend it to me? Do you have one of those things that like from Harry Potter, the thing that she turns where she can be like 12 places at once. I need your whatever that magical thing is called. 

Zibby: I'm in one place at once.

But yeah, it's definitely a lot. But I don't have another book coming out now. And you do. 

Lynda: But you will. Eventually. Eventually. 

Zibby: This will be my book of the year. This worked out perfectly. You know. 

Lynda: Okay. Good. 

Zibby: It ends up, um, and obviously I know we're joking about it, but just so, so important to be doing something and donating the proceeds and the biggest gift of it all has been getting to know all the contributors well over email and through their words and everything.

So that's been, it's been such a nice community. So sorry for the emails, but. 

Lynda: No, I, so you both don't bother me, don't worry. 

Zibby: Good, because I'm sending more today. Well, there you go. So, I mean, you have so much going on. I was going to say, like, what else? You're, like, about to go on the road. So where are you going for your tour?

Lynda: And my daughter's getting married in January. 

Zibby: Oh, that's awesome. 

Lynda: Yeah, she's really excited. Yeah, so that's super exciting. I'm going, I'm doing a bunch in, I'm doing two things in New York City, which I've never, like, really done before. Four, like a launch in New York City, so that's October 8th with Amy Poppel, which I'm so excited about.

Zibby: Oh, she's so nice. 

Lynda: We're downtown. Yeah. And then things up, I live in Westchester, so things up in Chappaqua. I'm going to Parnassus books, which I am so excited about with Lauren Essen. I'm gonna speak with her there. And she's a great romance writer. 

Zibby: And it's in, it's in a mini mall, just so you know. 

Lynda: That's okay.

Zibby: Just, just so you know, I thought I went to the wrong place. You have to like turn, turn into the parking lot of the mini mall. And then there's Parnassus. 

Lynda: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I, I think I was there, but at the old, I think it was an old location. 

Zibby: Yes. 

Lynda: That I, that was closer to Vanderbilt. Closer to the university that I went to, like when I went to see that, school with my daughter, I think.

Yeah, and I'm going to Georgia, to Foxtail, which will be really fun. Florida, of course, I have to get to, you know, the Florida libraries. I'll be, but I'll be at the Mount Pleasant Library in Pleasantville, New York, and at, which books are being sold by Village Bookstore in Pleasantville, which is amazing.

And I'm going to be at Scattered Books in Chappaqua, another amazing independent store. So many great places. Elm Street Books in New Canaan. Just, you know, it's just a lot of fun, but the, the traveling, you know, DC, Oh, politics and pros, I'm so excited. I'm going to go to politics and prose with Susan Cole, so that's going to be really fun.

Yeah. And it's been fun. I've been getting like, with the early reading thing, with people reading early, I've been getting emails from people who are pharmacists, which has been the most fun. 

Zibby: Oh, interesting. 

Lynda: Yeah. Yeah. 

Zibby: You should go to like, you should go to a pharmacist convention or something. 

Lynda: I know. 

Zibby: No, I'm serious.

You should look it 

1. Go look it up and get a booth and something. 

Lynda: Get a booth. I don't know. 

Zibby: You should. 

Lynda: Yeah. That would, well, it would be fun. Yeah. It would be fun. My biggest regret is that I didn't get, I really wanted to get, there's a pharmacy museum in New Orleans, and I really wanted to get there, and I didn't get there.

I, I just couldn't, couldn't work it out. 

Zibby: Ask them to sell it in a gift shop. 

Lynda: Maybe. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Lynda: See? You should be my marketing person. 

Zibby: I also think there's a huge marketing potential with this book with the retirement community and the people who are sort of reluctantly retiring and what to do with yourself.

And you know, it doesn't have to be elderly. I mean, there are people whose jobs force them to retire early, like athletes and things like that. So the sort of notion that like you're primed and ready to go and the industry tells you that you have to stop. I mean, that's a very sort of relatable and pervasive thing that you write about really beautifully.

Lynda: Well, thank you. I do think that's, I think that's a huge, it's a huge issue. I think it's just a huge issue just aging, you know, aging with dignity, aging with grace, aging and still living, you know, and that's something that I really wanted to show in this story and, and for women, especially, you know, Augusta is a really strong woman.

She, she's unconventional. She leads a very unconventional life and she, has a lot to offer because she listens to people, you know, that in that confessor role. And I think one of the themes actually that we didn't touch on yet, and I don't know how much more time we have, but one of the things that, that's also, I just wanted to mention this book is, you know, women in medicine so often are not listened to, right?

Like we, we've all had like those doctors you go and you have a pain and they tell you it's anxiety. I had vertigo for like six months and they kept telling me that it was stress and it was not stress. There was a real reason for my vertigo. And.. 

Zibby: So like was it? Why did you have it? 

Lynda: It was this, um, vestibular, vestibular vertigo that happens a lot, like, before menopause, like perimenopausal kind of thing, and it, like, I had to take, yeah, it, but finally when I found someone who listened to me, who did all these tests, and like, you know, and so, uh, Esther is that person.

For a lot of women in the story, she's the one who listens to them when their doctors don't, when the conventional sort of methods don't listen to her. So that is a really important thing. And I think that's, I think like, it's sort of, we have to listen to like, older people too. You know, like I think a lot of times with older people, we, we sort of dismiss what they're saying and we just like say like, oh, they're all, you know, they don't know what they're, they're losing it or whatever, but it's, it's important, you know, to listen.

Zibby: I don't know if you've watched it yet. It just came out. Three women is now a series on stars. The book by Lisa Tadeo. 

Lynda: I haven't watched it. 

Zibby: Anyway, in the first episode, which is all I've seen so far, but it was very good. There's a whole scene of someone who has, you know, she's been wearing gloves because her fingers are numb and one random doctor said maybe you need to do that.

And she's just basically like, no one listens to me. And there's this very intense scene where she goes to this new healer who finally sees her and like looks her in the eyes and is like, you have you know, whatever it was by Ramayya or whatever it was, she's like, you have this and this is what you need to do.

And she was like crying with relief. And it's that, that, you know, the moment of like eye contact and pausing and being like, yes, you have something that's worth talking about. 

Lynda: Yeah, no, it's true. Like when I had that vertigo, I got, I mean, people were telling me you're dehydrated or whatever, like it just would not go away.

It was this, the worst feeling. And I got really depressed because you just don't feel like yourself and no one is listening to you and no one is, you know, I mean, I went to this ENT like three different times. Like, yeah, it's, it's, I could see, I didn't, I don't think I cried when I saw the doctor who helped me, but I definitely, I felt that, I felt that kind of like, thank God that she is listening to me and she is doing these tests, and she found something that explains it.

It's an important thing. 

Zibby: Vertigo is the worst. I had it just for like a day or two during COVID and I had to walk like holding the walls. Like my whole world was like an earthquake or like I was on a boat and it was so terrible. And they're like, you probably have an ear infection. I was like, I don't have an ear infection.

I have COVID. Like, what are you talking about? Yeah. It's the worst. I'm so sorry you had that for so long. 

Lynda: Oh no, it's okay. It's, it was years and years ago. It was like, it was. Well, it was right before my daughter's bat mitzvah, and now she's getting married. So, like, so it's like, yeah, it was a long time ago.

But, yeah, you know, things in life come like that, right? Like, crazy things, and then happy things, and I don't know. Like, there's there's a lot of, I don't know, I'm going to wax poetic, but like, the older I get, the more I really feel that. It's like all of the sorrow and all the joy just mixed together. And I guess that's what I try to do in my books too.

You know, like I really want to make you cry when I, when you read my book. And I also really want to make you laugh. Like I really want to do both. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Lynda: Cause like, that's, you know, that's life. 

Zibby: I love it. Well, I loved the end, I love where it all led. It was such a satisfying conclusion, like the whole thing.

Yeah, it's like a grip your heart, like, oh, I mean, it was very satisfying. 

Lynda: That makes me happy. It's a good, it's a good feeling when people feel that way. So. 

Zibby: Congratulations. Linda, so great. I wish you all the best on your tour and launch and everything. And I think I'm, I'll see you soon. 

Lynda: Yeah, absolutely.

Okay. Thanks so much for chatting with me. 

Zibby: Of course. Thanks for the book. 

Lynda: Okay. 

Zibby: All right. 

Lynda: Bye.