New York Times bestselling author Marisha Pessl chats with Zibby about DARKLY, a wildly smart, edge-of-your-seart psychological YA thriller about a mysterious board game creator whose legacy intrigues a young fan, Arcadia Gannon. She and six other teenagers win coveted internships at Darkly… and so the mystery begins. Marisha shares her love of board games, her North Carolina upbringing, and her fascination with legend vs. reality, all of which inspired this novel. She also touches on her early struggles with writing and the discipline she has developed to balance writing with raising three daughters. Finally, she teases her next project.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Marisha. Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss Darkly.

Congratulations. 

Marisha: Oh, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. 

Zibby: You're welcome. Okay, I know this is sort of the dreaded question, but could you just give the quick elevator pitch on what your book is about? 

Marisha: Sure. Um, my book is a Thriller that centers upon a long dead, um, game maker named Louisiana Veda. She passed away 40 years ago.

And in the subsequent time, her board games have really taken off. There are lots of theories about who she was as a woman, as an innovator. Was she a genius? Was she a hack? And because she lived so long into the past and passed away in 1985, now in present times, there's quite a lot of rumors. So the story focuses on a young woman named Arcadia Gannon, who is a huge Louisiana beta fan.

She wins a coveted spot in a mysterious internship that has been set up by her foundation and, um, and it really sets off, um, a series of twisted turns as she tries to not only solve a mystery, in the present, but also figure out exactly who this woman was.

Zibby: Which, by the way, I won't give anything away, but I read to the end and wow, I'll just leave it at that.

Marisha: Thank you so much. Thank you. 

Zibby: Loved, loved. 

Marisha: Oh, thank you. 

Zibby: How you wrapped that up and everything. 

Marisha: And oh, good. 

Zibby: The larger message from it all. And, you know, there's a lot there to unpack. 

Marisha: I mean, I would say it's really a coming of age tale because in my own 20s, I just remember, you know, setting out upon the world with such wide eyes.

And then as you learn the mechanics of power and what's really going on behind the scenes, these idols that you loved as, you know, and inspired you like all of the writers that I loved as a child that inspired me to be a writer and then just sort of realizing like what really is going on behind the scenes, you know, I'm 46 years old and I'm still shocked by these stories.

So I really am interested in that space between legend and the real dirty story of how it went down, like the spikes, the, um, the troughs, the, you know, and the sacrifices. 

Zibby: Have there been authors who you idolized when you were younger that you found out about and you can't stop thinking about type of thing?

Marisha: You know what? No, I have been blessed to have not going to throw anyone under the bus. 

Zibby: Okay. Okay. 

Marisha: We'll say in publishing, looking back on the publishing of my first novel, there was a great deal of sexism. Uh, you know, a lot of, you know, people telling me, Oh, you're only successful because of the way you look.

I was 25 years old. I just sort of took all of this in without reacting and I see now that was like so completely, you know outrageous at the same time there are wonderful things that happen too. So looking back on that time has been very interesting I also have three daughters, so i'm very keen as to how all of these biases sort of slowly come about. So, yes, looking back, like, publishing my first novel, there was a lot.

So much, it's so much, like, kind of surprise. 

Zibby: I want to hear more about publishing your first novel, which you wrote, like, secretly hiding away at your PwC job, right? 

Marisha: Oh, yeah. Yes. God bless PwC. You see, because I read all these interviews and they're like, what a jerk, but no, I do look so favorably on that time.

It was my fault, but yes. 

Zibby: So, so you, you know, you hear often about people sort of secreting away in the back of a minivan or different places or airplanes, right? For T. J. Newman or wherever you can find the time because your writerly instincts just sort of seep out wherever you are and you're observing or thinking or feeling or escaping yourself from whatever it is you're doing.

How did that. What happened with you, like tell me just a little more about that time and how you took the beginnings of those ideas to become such a huge successful project that I'm sure changed your life. 

Marisha: Yes. Well, you know what? I just had the book. I mean, from a very early age writing bug, like I'm naturally shy.

I love to be, you know, I can pretend to be an extrovert, but I'm very much like so happy Alone in my office writing. So I had the book at a very early age and you know, I had stars in my eyes. I, you know, loved Jonathan Franzen and I saw, you know, loved White Teeth, Zadie Smith, huge Donna Tartt fan. And then going back further, like I love Agatha Christie.

I love you know, I love, I studied British literature, English literature, Jane Austen, like all the great stick. And so I just had other stars in my eyes. Like I just loved stories. I love books. So however long it took me, I was just so committed and just driven by a complete joy for books. And so, yeah, I was always writing these very long books in college and I rather fortuitously, I was kept out of the fiction writing class at Gorman.

The professor was like, you're just not good enough. And I was like, well, can I try again? Can I get more work into you over the weekend? And he was like, fine. And I turned in that and he was like, this just doubles down on the fact, like, you should not be in my class. No, no, no. You know, maybe I had like a little bit of too much confidence.

This man was keeping me out of the fiction writing class. Big no. Well, I'm the sort of person that when someone tells me no, it's like the fire is turned up. I'm going to show that person. I don't care. And I, that's exact. So I was like, okay, now I'm really gonna, this poor man. He just didn't think I was good enough and I probably wasn't.

But, um, but so yes. fire turned up working night and day like in college. My friends were probably going out and having fun. Like I was sitting at my desk writing all the time. And the same was true when I graduated. And then, you know, always putting together these books, sending them out to the New York literary agent world.

And I have to say it was such a wonderful world because even though it was universally rejected. So. Some of these people wrote the nicest, most thoughtful responses of what I needed to work on, like, I guess they were akin to me, like, they love books, they want great stories, so I would take that little paragraph where they actually encouraged me, and then I would set off again, and so finally, by the time Specialist Topics Was published I probably had written, you know, a lot of rejected full length books and I have them in a box But just you know, it's all born out of a love of the written word love of books And and now I see culturally like how much we need books just physical books.

No screens Sitting in, actually your room looks pretty cozy. Come on over. Sitting back there, something similar to this. And just, you know, going into a story. It's so good for mental health. It's good for imagination, concentration. Like, I just, so I remember when special topics came out and they said, Oh, you know, with video games and the internet, like you're not going to have a job.

So reports of book stuff has been greatly exaggerated. 

Zibby: Yeah. Reports of the demise of the publishing industry. All of it. 

Marisha: Exactly. 

Zibby: It does not go away. And like you, I have in the cabinet you're looking at back there, I have a stack of my mini stack of my own rejection letters from my twenties. But unlike you, I didn't set the fire as much as like set me back a little bit to like regroup.

Marisha: Right. I have to say. Yeah. 

Zibby: So you mentioned your daughters. Tell, like, how do you raise great readers and writers? Because I have four kids myself and people are always asking me this and I'm like, I I don't know. So, do you have any thoughts on this? 

Marisha: Well, I'm really, um, I'm not a big fan of screen time. Like, I, I actually, we do, we do not.

I don't hand my child an iPad ever because I, again, I think, so my key so far and granted my kids are four, seven, and nine. So you know, the fat lady has not stopped, but we just very much limit that. So if their only form of entertainment is reading or talking to mom, like, you know, so that, and also, I mean, a lot of it is like, I think we're just such a huge book household.

There are books everywhere, books in the kitchen, books stacked on tables. So it's just very easy to pick up a book and crawl up with sisters and read and having those places. Books are not put away. So they're stacked everywhere. So it's just very easy for them to pick up. 

Zibby: Yes. So how do you, with three daughters of those ages, which is intense, you know, my youngest is actually nine and my oldest is 17.

I'm in slightly different phase. And by the way, really bad about screen time. So I sort of envy your conviction. 

Marisha: You are like, 

Zibby: I wish, I wish I had, could go back and do it differently, but I didn't. Now I feel very stuck here. But anyway, talk about how you're writing now and how you got into Darkly versus Special Topics and Calamity Physics and how your life is obviously so different, but how do you, how do you approach your narratives?

How do you approach the structure of, when you're doing the writing, like, does it come in fits and bursts? Like, what does it look like and how has it changed? 

Marisha: It's so funny. So, before I had children, when I was just, you know, a single woman in New York City, talk about having all the time in the world, luxuriating in this time, as if it was, like, an infinite resource.

So, you know, lots of, you know, taking my time. Now I'm much more, okay, I have to write between now and three o'clock before pick up, so I just get it. Done. And there's a wonderful velocity to it, and you're not thinking too much about it. I actually think it's healthier letting the subconscious take over.

So you're not so persnickety, I would say. At the same time, my process has not changed in that I'm a planner. I love to plan. So I map it out as much as possible. Night film, I didn't map as much. And that's why I think it took me longer because then I had to go through the jungle and hack things away. So now.

Just for efficiency's sake, completely plot everything before I even start. Because there's always that writer need like, oh, I want to start writing. Nope, no, no. Like, come on. Now we have deadlines. We have people waiting for this thing. Got it done. So being a mom and having all these balls in the air has made it much more efficient.

And not being so You know, if it's done, there's beauty in that versus a gorgeous sentence in, yeah, like you're so late on your deadline. So yeah. 

Zibby: Um, and do board games play a role in your family? How did the, the game and gaming in general, like, tell me about that. 

Marisha: Well, yes, I mean, this, the love of it was born from my childhood, like trivial pursuit.

And even like when I was really young, shoots, the ladders, monopoly, just like all of those classics on you know, rainy nights like staying in with my mom and my sister and grandmother and just, you know, uh, playing board games and getting pretty competitive about it. But those are just like wonderful family bonding times.

And so I also was interested in how things like become a work of art because the character of Louisiana Beta, her original games are now sold and put on walls. So, um, sort of merging the video gaming world with the analog board game space and then this idea of works of art and sort of Louisiana inhabiting those spaces and creating a gaming world where clues from her own biography are hidden inside the games.

So it was a way of her telling her story when it, back in 1985, probably no one wanted to hear the truth of this woman who rose from nowhere and became so successful. 

Zibby: Interesting. And it takes place in part in an antiques store. Tell me, do you have a thing for antique stores? Do you spend a lot of time? 

Marisha: I grew up in Asheville, North Carolina, and I think so Hendersonville, which is really close to Asheville.

My mom and I would go like often after school because my mom loves antiques and we would troll. There's this In downtown Hendersonville, there are all these antique stores, you know, floors and no one's ever in them. So I have memory of my childhood where it was just my mom and I wandering, you know, in the dust balls.

And was there even somewhat like a proprietor of the store? I don't know, you know, and just finding all of the things like the silver and the portraits and the broken tables, all of these things have such a story and it's completely lost. Like, you know, families, people pass away, you know, Children get rid of the stuff.

So it's really just kind of erased and you can make up your stories around it. And I love old things. So, 

Zibby: yeah, I went to a store in LA and it was a mix of new and old, so you could wander through and it was like, this really cool lamp from God, you know, from so long ago next to a new, I don't know, coffee table book and all this stuff.

And so I suggested to the owner who was talking to me about, I don't know, something. I was like, you should host a class here, a writing class, and everyone should just pick an object and sit down and like write all day because how can you not be inspired? 

Marisha: Yes. And the old with the new. Like, I love that.

Zibby: Right? I know. Yeah. Go back and bring it up again. But all antique stores. I mean, you know, my ring that I got for my second final wedding, I hope. Anyway, you know, we found in a, in like an antique store. And I always wonder, like, what is that story? And there must be a novel there, right? What is it? 

Marisha: Well, and also I have this ring from, I love antiques from New Orleans.

Like, And all of those, like, I always ask, like, where did this come from? I don't know, in a state zone. I'm like, this has a story, you know. 

Zibby: I found mine in Charleston, which I feel also has lots of ghosts. 

Marisha: Yes, yes, I know. I love it. 

Zibby: Will there be any sort of creative launch events with any sort of game component or anything to it, or art or something cool?

What are you doing to launch the book? 

Marisha: Definitely, definitely. We have some really interesting pre order stuff. Swag. And then I know my publisher is working on like what the launch parties are. And I think we might have a zoom for fans prior to publication, something along the lines of some sort of mystery, but all of that is in the works to be 

continued.

Zibby: I know, it makes you want to, you should launch an internship, like a similar contest and pick like six people at random or something, you know, you should try that. 

I know, 

Marisha: I have to purchase an island, there's a lot of 

Zibby: Well, don't get the island, but maybe just, I don't know, an opportunity. 

Marisha: I don't know, I missed my other deadline, so yeah. It's sponsored. 

Zibby: You could still have people submit like a, yes, application and then you'd like get information. Yeah, right. 

Marisha: And that's your plate. Can you be in charge? 

Zibby: I'll be in charge of the internship project. As long as I can sort of keep an intern or something. Wait, you mentioned a deadline. So what are you working on next?

Marisha: So now I'm editing my next adult novel. So that is a little, yeah, we're putting some finishing touches on it. 

Zibby: Oh, what can you say about that? 

Marisha: Gosh, um, well, it's really funny. So when I announced Darkly, a lot of people on X were like, why do you always write about young people? Like, what's wrong with you?

Message received. Maybe there won't be as many young people this time. 

Zibby: Okay. 

Marisha: Lots of feedback. Thanks for the message. Um, so yes, but it's very exciting. 

Zibby: Ooh. 

Marisha: Nothing more on that. 

Zibby: Okay. Okay. I'll wait with faded breath. Do you have advice for aspiring authors? And I'd also love to hear advice you have on sustaining a writing career and not letting it sort of eclipse, like, what do you, you know, how do you keep it all going and not?

Yes. Yeah, 

Marisha: you know, yeah, well, so maybe my advice for young writers and my advice for keeping going to be the same and that I wish someone had told me way back in my twenties that there's great glory and just doing one thing well, because I remember, you know, when special topics came out, Holden and William Directions.

And then now I'm much more about the ability to write one novel well and the routine of that, which can be grueling. I think as a young person, you're like, Oh, maybe I should go over here and maybe I should write this, but choose. I guess this is, some people might not like this, but choose what you love and it does mean not doing something else and just work on the routine of doing that well.

And there's really no like magic formula other than hard work, reading, writing every day, learning from others, but just that routine and repetition. I am now like in love with this, like having this plan. This is what I do. I know this like Zen, like repetition. Without going over here, without going over there, 

just the same thing.

Yeah. 

Zibby: I do not follow that advice. That is, that is hard for me to follow. I feel like I need lots of stuff at all times. 

Marisha: No, I know. Well, I, you know, I also have a lot of love for other things, too. 

Zibby: No, of course you do. 

Marisha: But now, this is my routine. Writing one novel well is hard enough. So I just love, like, starting again and this now is complete and here I go again.

And yes. Yes. 

Zibby: Yes. And when you're not parenting and writing novels, what are some of your favorite things to do? 

Marisha: I would say now that the kids are old enough, like we are now traveling and I love like we are getting up and going, you know, and I'm also embracing the chaos. there's a meltdown, if there's a fight, like, we just, we will show up at the airport, we will get on the plane, we will go to this foreign location, and just create all these amazing memories.

I guess sometimes it's the most, like, Oh, this is terrible situations. Now when my husband, I look back, you're like, that was so great. Like we were so uncomfortable and we thought it was all going to seed and it turned out like we just came together as a family. So embrace the chaos, pick up, get up early and go somewhere.

Like, that's now my, my family motto. 

Zibby: Love that. Love it. And any books you are reading right now that you're obsessed with? 

Marisha: Yes. I'm reading Is This Anything by Jerry Seinfeld because I'm probably the biggest Jerry Seinfeld fan in the world. This like will make you laugh out loud. Like I just have it on my bedside.

I read it. I laugh. I go to sleep. Then the other book I'm loving is this Supercommunicators. I haven't read this. authors, we need all the help we can get. So, um, 

I'm working on that. And then I'm on.. 

Zibby: That's by Charles Duhigg, who is an old friend of mine from college and business. 

Marisha: Oh, you're kidding. Yeah. Oh my gosh.

Yeah. So actually my husband was given it by a colleague and he's like, you need to read that. So I love it so far. And then now I'm on the Sarah Mass bandwagon. Yes. I'm diving into the Crescent City. I'm loving it. 

Zibby: Yes. If only we had more time to read. 

Marisha: I know. That's what airplanes are for. 

Zibby: Yes, exactly.

Thank goodness for that. Well, thank you so much. This has been so much fun, and congratulations, and thanks for the book. And I'm so excited to see your book. All the huge response to it, and I really enjoyed seeing where it all ended up. 

Marisha: Thank you so much for having me, and I'm in awe of everything that you've created, so I'm looking forward to it.

Hopefully, if my book tour takes me to Los Angeles, hopefully I'll be able to come visit. 

Zibby: Yes, please do. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. Bye.