Zibby chats with author Scott Johnston about his provocative, satirical new novel, THE SANDERSONS FAIL MANHATTAN. Set in the elite world of New York’s Upper East Side, the story follows the unraveling of a seemingly perfect family as they collide with modern cultural and educational upheaval. Scott shares the inspiration behind the book—from viral blog posts about private school politics to real-life frustrations with the erosion of values in elite institutions. He and Zibby delve into themes of status, moral courage, parental pressure, and the societal obsession with optics.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Scott. Thank you so much for coming on Totally Booked with Zibby to talk about the Sanderson's Fail Manhattan. Congrats. 

Scott: Thank you. 

Zibby: And I am sitting here in Manhattan as I am, you know, this is like a meta moment as I'm in the scene of the crime here on the Upper East side. So, uh, yeah, I couldn't wait to,.. 

Scott: Are you sitting at 740 Park?

Zibby: No, no, no, no. 

Scott: Oh,.. 

Zibby: No, no, no. 

Scott: That'd be too funny. 

Zibby: No, no, no, no. Okay. So tell, tell listeners what your book is about. 

Scott: Uh, sure. So the Sanderson's are, uh, an Upper East Side family, and, and they, they seemingly have it made. The husband, uh, will, is already very wealthy, uh, but he is on the cusp of entering the professional stratosphere at his powerful investment firm, bedrock Capital.

I. Um, he's about to go from wealth to mega wealth and, you know, there's always a next level when you're playing this game. Um, his wife, Ellie, uh, is an outsider, uh, having grown up in an itinerant, uh, you know, with an itinerant existence, uh, as a, as an army brat. And she's really the emotional center of the novel.

Her burning desire is. To is simply to feel rooted to a community somewhere, something she never got to feel, uh, before, especially growing up. So when the family moves to Manhattan, which is where Will grew up, uh, and was very much, uh, a center of the, uh, and part of the establishment, she longs to fit in in the ways one fits in on the Upper East Side, the school committees, the dinner parties, the private clubs, et cetera.

Not because she's status hungry, but because she desperately wants. To plant roots somewhere to you know, to belong. Then there are two daughters. Both enrolled at one of the top private girls schools called the Lennox School. Lennox Hill School for Girls Will is scheming to ensure that Jenny, the, the older girl gets into Yale,

'cause that's where Sanderson always go. Ginny is fiercely independent though, and she's driving Will nuts because she seems indifferent to the whole idea. The younger daughter, Zoe, is kind of overlooked most of the time. She's 'cause she's painfully shy, uh, until she meets a new student named Clover who claims, uh, somewhat enigmatically to be, uh, eco sexual, which is someone who has relations with nature.

And yes, that that is a real thing. So as you can imagine, nothing works out according to anyone's plan. Uh, there's this whole new landscape out there of cultural rules and practices that includes DEI struggle sessions and privilege walks, and even corporate wilm for, for will at work. Uh, and the Sanderson's managed to trip on every landmine there is, uh, things go very South when the girl school gets a much sought after trans student that is a boy transitioning to be a girl who then promptly disappears. Uh, the whole city gets caught up in, in finding her. And the, the Sanderson somehow find themselves in the middle of the story and very publicly in society, crosshairs. And so that's pretty much the setup without giving too much away, but that, that's where we go.

Zibby: And what drew you specifically to this story? 

Scott: I have, um. Often I started blogging about co um, educational issues years ago, and, um, blogged a fair amount about Yale in particular where I gathered we both went and sort of watched its long slow descent into what I would call madness. Then really dates back to the eighties and nineties, but it has accelerated in in recent years and in, in the, 2000, 2021 timeframe, um, in the wake of George Floyd, the private schools in New York in particular went utterly insane. Uh, they rule retooled their curricula. They, they, um, they got rid of all the prior principles of the Pursuit of Truth came all about identity politics. And because I had this blog called The Naked Dollar, which.

And I'm not a terribly active blogger even, but I had this blog and I, I did write about these things. Uh, someone initially reached out to me about one school, which I can name Dalton, and some crazy stuff happening behind the scenes there. In particular a uh, eight page list of demands from the teachers about what the school should do.

And they were eight pages of, of insanity. So I leaked the, I broke the story on my blog. The thing went completely viral. The Wall Street Journal asked me to do a, uh, an op-ed, which I did, and there were several follow up pieces. The headmaster there ended up getting fired in the wake of the whole thing, but then other people started sending me their crazy stories from the insides of, of the other schools.

Uh, so I, I had this, this serial series, you know, series of blogs about. Um, each of the schools, the, the, and the naked dollar went utterly viral at that time. Uh, we got a million hits in a six week period, which for a little blog, but I don't even contribute too much. Was was crazy. But clearly I'd hit on something and then something happened.

The spark that caused me to think, you know, maybe. If there's a novel here, I was in a meeting, uh, the context of that meeting I'll have to keep to myself, but so in, in the blog, I should go back in the blog, every time I wrote about school, I listed the names of the board members of that school at the bottom of the piece.

Like, these are the people you can point a finger at if you're upset about this stuff going on. And, um, a woman comes up in this meeting and, uh, everyone likes her. And, um, and I said, you know, I, I don't know her, but. You know, she's presiding over a school. She happened to be the, the head of the board of one of these schools that I wrote about, um, that I think has gone nuts and they're doing an utter disservice to their own community.

And that gives me a little pause. And almost immediately, two or three people said, oh, she's perfectly lovely. And here's the thing, she probably is, I've never met her still, but if she were sitting next to you at a dinner party, you'd probably say this is a lovely one. Very successful, clearly. Uh, probably, probably very, uh, educated and engaging, but she and people like her are presiding over a complete overthrow of Western civilization at, at their own schools and the principles of the enlightenment, like reason and the pursuit of truth.

Um, so I became fixated, fixated on this idea of these lovely people, many of whom I know who indeed are really nice people, but they, they. There's a certain moral caritas, uh, as they sit on these boards and do nothing. They sit on their hands while they watch, um, the insanity and divisiveness of identity politics, so take over. So it became fixated this on this idea and the book became known as All The Lovely People, which I thought was a great title, but St. Martin's Press did not like that title. Uh, so it's now just a chapter title, but they, uh, they claimed it wasn't a good hook to get to lu little readers in. So hopefully the Sanderson's fail Manhattan, uh, gets people to say, who are the Andersons and why are they failing Manhattan?

Zibby: It got me to say that. 

Scott: Oh, good. 

Zibby: Yeah. I mean, all the lovely people is much more generic than, than this. So you know what you're getting. I think with books you have to, you have like two seconds to capture people's attention, so 

Scott: They cited, uh. Fleischmann's in trouble. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Scott: Ever read, but is another Manhattan based novel.

And apparently you want to know why this fleischmann's in trouble? And the book was a good seller, so. 

Zibby: Yes.

 Well, you know, taffy Prode Ner is also just amazing. You know, she could write about a tree and I would read it. She's amazing. But yes, marketing is obviously part of it. Well, I'm sorry. It, it hurts to lose the title that you're attached to, so I'm sorry for that.

Scott: No, it's okay. 

Zibby: So are you on a school board or have you ever been? 

Scott: Uh, not a school board, no. Very close to lots of people who are and have been. And, uh, I, I, um, I now live in Charlottesville, Virginia, where, um, there's a lot of craziness going on around the board there at UVA. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Scott: So I just, I get upset that, you know, what happens is.

People feel compromised. You're on a board and maybe you wanna say something, maybe you wanna raise your hand and say, you know, wait a minute. Is this, is this right? 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Scott: But your kids at that school, and maybe they're a rising senior and Brittany has to get into Harvard, and, uh, you're afraid you won't get a good recommendation.

And it's a legitimate fear, actually. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Scott: Um, the, the administrations at these schools have become quite vindictive against people who fall out of line. And the parent contracts are written in such a way that if you sort of publicly fall out of line, uh, with, with everything that's going on, you, you can be asked to leave, you simply are deemed not a good fit anymore.

Zibby: Wow. So I mean, you write so sort of searingly about the politics of society and like stations in life and, and all of that, and sort of the awareness of who you are and you know, what it means. And like optics, I guess optics play a big role. Talk a little bit about, about that. 

Scott: Uh, well, most people are concerned with status and how they're perceived by others.

And, uh, I guess I, I was very inspired and, and sometimes get compared to, which is flattering to, uh, Tom Wolf who, you know, famously looked at everyone's vanities. 

Um, 

and, um, uh, you know, funny side story. When I was a young pup right out of college in my first, uh, job on Wall Street, he spent two days on my trading desk, uh, at Solomon Brothers researching bonfire, which was a real kick for me.

And, uh, you know, it was interesting. It was clear from the questions he was asking. He didn't know anything about what was going on, but then the book came out and he clearly listened very well. So anyway, it, it's always, uh, it's always great to analyze people's motives and, and vanities, if you will. 

Zibby: And what do you think, it sounds like you have a very strong point of view on what schools and education boards and all of that should be doing in the, in the face of sort of identity politics and all the rest.

What do, what do you think schools should be doing in this time? 

Scott: Well, the boards need to stand up and, and Barry Weiss too has been very vocal about this. She's great. The boards need to stand up and take control because mostly they've been vanity boards. You go on a school board and, uh, you're, you're thrilled with yourself for the status that that conveys.

And, people approach you about getting their kid into that school and it feels good. But mostly these boards, and this is the college level too, in fact, maybe more so on the college level, don't really do anything. They, uh, their vanity boards, they sit there and, uh, receive information from the administration, but their strings are completely pulled by the school presidents and, and, and other administrators.

And some really awful stuff is happening. I mean, critical race theory, if you, spend five minutes trying to understand what it really is, is a horrible ideology. And it's being taught, uh, as, as dogma at some of the best schools, elementary schools in the country. Uh, they're also being taught to to hate our own country, which I think is important, uh, abhorrent and the boards are.

Doing essentially zero about this because again, you know, maybe Brittany, maybe the adjective used in a recommendation for Harvard goes from outstanding to above average, and that kills you right there. So they, there are legitimate concerns that people could pay a price for standing up, but that price compared to some of the other periods in, in, um, in world history.

You know, the, the cost for standing up to, uh, you know, the, the Nazis in the thirties, for instance, or, or the Ayatollahs in Iran in the, in the, uh, eighties and nineties are, are vanishingly small. So I do get upset that people seem to, um, lack any moral courage about these things. 

Zibby: Tell me about a time you've stood up for something you believed in.

Scott: Well, I really got into it over the school. My, my oldest kid was going to in the, up in Westchester County, and we, we went, we went toe to toe with them, and for a time it was an extremely uncomfortable situation because all the other parents were, who, by the way, who, didn't necessarily disagree with me and, and my wife, but they were upset, we were rocking the boat. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Scott: Was really what it came down to. No one wants to rock the boat, but I really looked into the situation of what was going on at that school and um, I. And, and this is way back in like the aughts. And it was, it was horrible, what was, what was being taught and what was not being taught.

So that was a very, very uncomfortable situation for us, for, for a year or two. And we finally left that school and found one we liked, which is hard to do for, from where I sit these days. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. . So taking all of that, how did you come at the Sanderson's Fail Manhattan? What do you want people to think and feel when they finish reading the book?

Scott: I want them to have fun. Same with my first novel Campus Land, which was a thinly veiled send up of Yale. I, I, I, I want them to laugh. Hopefully out loud a few times and, and I want it to be a fun ride, but I also want them to learn a couple things along the way. And you have to be careful about that as an author because if you're really trying to spoonfeed people a point of view, they generally don't take it very well.

So, it, you have to do that with a little subtlety and maybe wrap it in a whole lot of fun. But I'd like people, I, I mean, my first novel, I wanted people to understand what was going on with the abuse of Title IX on campuses and some other issues. And, and here I'd like people to understand about these, completely laying boards and the insanity that of, of what's happening in private schools, which by the way has been dialed back a tiny bit, but you know, the pendulum has maybe swung back, but only just a little. So I. So, yeah. 

Zibby: What are you focused on next? Do you have a new book that you're writing, a new thing that you thinking about A lot.

Scott: I've two half written, half written books. One is the send up of the, uh, art World, which is a little different. Sometimes it's difficult to federalize something that's already self satirical. I. It's our world, very much is. And the other is a road novel called The Ashes, which, uh, is about two brothers forced to set out on the American road to find the right place to spread their father's ashes.

And they...,

Zibby: mm-hmm, 

Scott: are only given 30 days by their father to do it. Uh, who they're, they were estranged from him as well, and otherwise they don't inherit, uh, like, so they're forced to spend time with each other and the father speaks to 'em through a GPS enabled speak. It sits in their car as they travel the, the American roads and are forced to go to the world's largest ball of twine and other things.

So, uh, I'm having some fun with that. 

Zibby: Have you seen the play The Lucky Stiff or Lucky Stiff ?

Scott: No, 

Zibby: it's, I mean, my daughter's school just put it on, so I have just seen it. But, uh, it, it's sort of similar that the, the, the voice from the past, literally through a tape recorder is telling the people what to do and all the experiences they have to have.

Scott: Oh, interesting. Well, you know, I hit on the idea of a taper of a, you know, Bluetooth speaker being GPS enabled and that that technology does exist. 

Zibby: Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's like a modernized version. I'm sure it's completely different, but just, uh, you know, it's this funny from the grave sort of direction.

'Cause, don't we all kind of want to be able to dictate things forever. Okay. Well, what advice do you have for aspiring authors? 

Scott: Well. I, I don't know. I'm probably, I don't know if I'm a good person to ask or not. I didn't, I I never thought about being a, uh, a novelist, honestly, until some crazy stuff happened at Yale that I thought, oh, this, there's, someone's gotta write a novel about this.

So I did campus land. I would say, you need to hook readers early. You need to, and it's amazing how many books fail to do this. You need to give them within a chapter or two at most. The reason they're reading that book and want to keep reading, I would always end chapters with a little bit of a tease or a hang.

Again, keep reading, keep readers moving forward. I would, do what I do, which is, you know, anytime you hear someone say funny or have a great turn of a phrase, write it down in your notes app, in your, on your phone because you'll never know how, how you might be able to use that someday and say, in fact, sometimes, uh, a funny turn of a phrase can turn into a whole chapter of a book.

And the last thing, and this is, literally when I sit out to write my first novel, like, you know, Googling, like, how do you write a novel, kind of a mystery to me, it seemed like this incredibly complex endeavor. And one bit of advice I stumbled on, and I don't remember who said this, but I thought it was great, was of all the endings you can can imagine, choose the one that is the most outrageous and yet still plausible.

Zibby: Hmm. 

Scott: I, I, I definitely took that to heart. 

Zibby: Love it. Okay. Well, Scott, thank you so much. The Sanderson's Fail Manhattan. Thank you, uh, for shining a light on, on this part of the world, so to speak. And congrats. 

Scott: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. 

Zibby: Okay, thanks.