Debut author Simone Gorrindo joins Zibby to discuss THE WIVES, a fearless, gripping, and gorgeously rendered memoir (and Book of the Month Club pick!) about her experience of joining a community of Army wives after her husband joins an elite Army unit and uproots her New York City life. Simone describes her journey from big city editor to Georgia army wife, highlighting the dramatic identity shift and the strong bonds she unexpectedly formed with other military spouses. She touches on her personal experiences during 9/11, her husband’s decision to join the military, and the challenges and surprises of military life. Ultimately, she reflects on the importance of finding your people and building your community together.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Simone. Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss The Wives, a memoir.

Congratulations. 

Simone: Thank you, Zibby. I am so honored to be here. 

Zibby: Yay. Okay. Tell listeners what your book is about and congrats on it being a Book of the Month Club pick, by the way. So exciting. 

Simone: Thank you. Yeah, it's, it's been an incredible experience putting it out into the world. So it's a memoir and it's really about the first Four or five years of my becoming a pretty unlikely army wife living from New York City, where I was an editor to Columbus, Georgia, and all the things that came with that in terms of a real identity upending transition, as well as becoming part of a close knit group of women, the other wives, you know, who were all pretty remarkably different from one another.

But we. got close in these really pressurized conditions. And it's, it's really about that and just stretching to get close to people who are different from you and also to, and really to navigate that too in one's own marriage and about kind of just the power of human connection despite our many limitations.

Zibby: I love that. In the beginning of the book, you set up the scene with you being in New York and about two weeks before 9 11. Correct? 

Simone: Yep. Two weeks before. Yes. 

Zibby: And what was your experience like of that? 

Simone: Oh, wow. Yeah. I was 17. I'd never been east of Nevada. I was totally naive and inexperienced in pretty much everything.

Yeah, I mean, really, the experience of 9/11 was, I was, I had, was working at my college, and I was walking to work, and I got to the corner of University Place and East 12th Street, and everyone was just still, which is a really strange. I had only been in New York for two weeks, but even I knew this is not normal in New York.

I mean, there were just crowds of still people. And I looked into the street. I had this feeling of like, oh, was a child run over? Just this, the silence had this horrified quality. And then I realized everyone was looking up. And I saw that the first building, there was a big fiery hole in it. And the second building hadn't been hit yet.

And I understood obviously that there were many people in there, but I was so young and so new, and it was so, such a shocking surreal thing to see it wasn't really until I got to work and actually this isn't in the book but my boss came running in crying because her mother worked on the 80th floor that I fully like it fully hit me and fortunately her mom had gone on vacation a day early and she wasn't there but it just you know after that kids came flooding in everyone was trying to reach their parents and then we were quarantined for two weeks in our neighborhood and just the streets were just papered with the faces of the missing.

Yeah. 

Zibby: Oh my goodness. I'm sorry about your experience. You say that sort of kicked off just being at war, feeling like you're at war forever and as sort of prologue to being, you know, an army wife or whatever troops or, you know. 

Simone: Yeah, I think that it did. It, it made the reality. It certainly brought in the realities of war in a way that I, you know, I'd grown up very in a pacifistic family.

I I had listened to Vietnam protest songs, but that had been very much a thing of history and suddenly it felt very present and, you know, I marched against the, the invasion of Iraq a few years later and, you know, so it was real, but it was also very distant. And I think that was also the way in which I opposed it, you know, I had strong feelings, but it was a very kind of comfortable opposition because, you know, my life continued very much the same in an everyday way.

Zibby: And then you met. The man who would become your husband, who was like, I'm thinking about doing this, you know, as we do during college, you're like, Oh, yeah. Okay. 

Simone: Yeah, exactly. I mean, kind of. Yeah. After he was in college, but I was done. And because he went a little later than I did. And yeah, we were, walking down the street and he said, you know, sometimes I think about joining the military and I said, I would leave you.

And that just came out of my mouth because I was not something I expected him to say we were from the same place, the Bay area in California. Really liberal place where, you know, both of our grandfathers had fought in World War II, but beyond that, we had no connections with the military and he had spent the first years of his life on a hippie commune.

I mean, it was really not what I was expecting, but he was an athlete. He is an athlete. He's a very intense guy. It's a funny thing, you know, later when I would mention it to people who knew him growing up, they were like, Yeah, I was sort of shocked, and yet it makes all the sense in the world. He's a seeker.

He wants to see, like, the way the world really works and is. He's, he's brave and curious and gutsy, and so it all makes sense in retrospect. But it was not a life I saw us living together, you know. He was very sure from the beginning, we're gonna, you know, I'm going to marry you. I wasn't asked for the beginning, but I became her and, uh, you know, I just think, yeah, I think it was a, it was a shock for sure.

Zibby: But then you didn't leave, you wrote a book about it, it's not called the yeah. 

Simone: I, so he didn't mention it again for two more years and he finished college and moved to New York with me. So I could go to graduate school. school because we've kind of been, I'd mostly been in New York all through my young adulthood, but I left for a couple of years.

And it was during that time that it became very clear that he had not given up that dream. He, except I think he was very afraid. I know he was very afraid to mention it to me again, but I, you know, found recruitment pamphlets. I found these really detailed workout regimens and he was working towards, you know, not just the conventional courses, but, uh, Special operations unit that has a really selective, difficult process you have to go through.

And he said, yeah, I have not given up on this and that it wasn't really until we were engaged and ended up in couples counseling. And he said, if it's you or the army, I choose the army. That I really understood really the strength of his conviction and that it was, it was kind of a calling and that hurt.

It felt in some ways like a betrayal and at the same time it's also what I've loved and admired about him. Like I, I love that he remained that passionate and that he follows his desires. So yeah, catch 22. But I decided. Okay, let's do this. But it was not an easy decision and it wasn't an easy transition at all.

Zibby: And what was particularly difficult that you hadn't expected? 

Simone: Everything. I mean, I think that it's funny. So I came from a background as a journalist. I really am like, oh, I don't understand something. Let's get out the books, do the research, ask the questions, and I will get it. And that's what I did. So once I was on board, that's kind of what I did.

And I read a ton of books about these, you know, the global war on terror. I even reported on women's veterans issues. I mean, I tried, I really tried to get as deep as I could. And so I felt like I also read memoirs by army spouses and I was like, okay, I'm prepared. Like I can do this. I can quit my job. I can, moved to Georgia without a driver's license.

And then I got there and two weeks later, he deployed to Afghanistan. And I realized that none of it had prepared me because you know, living something is a lot different than reporting on it. And there were many things that were surprising. I mean, I think that but I think the wonderful surprise was how wonderful but also hard in a way is that we are all different people thrown together and so our really our main commonality was this life we had chosen but otherwise we were also radically different and so people really didn't fit into any kind of stereotype.

And I think that was a very like heart and character broadening experience for me. But I think it also is sort of a foreign thing, because I think once we get older, and we get married, and we have careers, we kind of become self selecting, like our worlds narrow and become more homogenous, and you sort of like know what you're going to walk into.

Like when I was an editor, I was like, when I'd meet another editor, it's like, I kind of know, you know, some basics have been like some touch points to connect, but it wasn't, this was totally different. And so I didn't necessarily know what a person's politics might be or their educational background or how they felt about the wars, you know, all those kinds of things.

And so that was a really just learning to kind of communicate. anew in the beginning, for sure. 

Zibby: I think the perception is that it can be very challenging to be an army spouse, right? For all the people who are not, is there anything that sort of a bystander could do to help army spouses sort of get through when they know it's a tough time?

Simone: That's a very thoughtful question. I think that army spouses, if we feel anything, we feel like there's a certain amount of lip service within the military that appreciates us and then outside of the military I think we don't even feel terribly recognized a lot of the time, you know there's a military spouse appreciation day on coming up on May 10th I didn't even know that until a year ago.

And so I think those words of appreciation are meaningful, but I think actions are Speak a lot louder. And so I think, you know, just like you would do with anyone else when they're going through a hard time, if you know somebody's spouse is being deployed or is gone, check in, drop a meal off at the front door, you know, basically be company because I think sometimes the hardest thing is that just you're, we're lonely and we're raising kids on our own and we want to be raising, you know, our family with.

With other kids and other families and so I mean the wonderful thing is is I've had that I feel like I've had that in spades and so it's like you lose this anchor in your family, but it opens this door for more love and like more connections and I think I have so many more friendships and my kids have so many more friendships and like a village and a real community because I've had people step in, and I've also learned how to ask for it.

Like, please invite me to your house this weekend, so my family doesn't, we don't all lose our minds, you know? So, I think just acknowledging that we're always in this transition, and that sometimes we're gonna have You know, our family all together and other times we're just going to be navigating the hardships and also joys of life alone and that we don't and we want to do that with others who love us is just the main thing.

Oh, yeah. 

Zibby: I love that. I feel like you would be fun to like live in a cul de sac with. 

Simone: Yeah, it is. It's fun. I'm social as a result. I mean, families sometimes get really, you know, kind of insular. And I can do that too. Like when my husband's home, he's working a lot and I'm working a lot and the kids are doing activities.

It's just like, you suddenly wake up after the work week and you're like, whoa, like what has even happened? I haven't even seen anyone outside of my family, my job this all week. And I think, yeah, I think that's been like the wonderful gift of this life is that you sort of, you get more creative and I, and I feel like much more connected to my community.

At large. Because of it. 

Zibby: That's awesome. So, you have this one scene, sort of towards the end of the book. Can I read, like, a short passage? Is that okay? 

Simone: Of course! Yeah, I would love that. 

Zibby: So, it starts with this. I have a red message, Vera said. The nature of the mission has changed, and so has their timeline. I let out an exhale.

I had been holding my breath, I realized, for thirty seconds, two minutes, who knew? I stood up and walked out to the aisle. Everyone was alive. No one was injured. But the nature of the mission has changed? Even for the Army, this was vague. I cradled my phone between my neck and shoulder and struggled to free my bag from the overhead bin.

A hairy arm came into view and grabbed my suitcase and I turned to see a tall man bringing it to the floor. I released his handle and gave him a stiff smile. What the hell does that mean? I asked Vera. I don't know. You don't know? The plane was suddenly stuffy. There were people on every side of me. I glanced back at my seatmate, who was now standing behind me.

There was visible concern on her face, so I gave her a weak thumbs up with my free hand. They're not coming home in two weeks, Vera said. The flights are delayed? The line of people ahead had finally begun to move, and I felt some of the tension in my body ease as I began to walk down the aisle. No, they're extending the mission.

Changing the mission. I don't know. Could be weeks. Could be months. Months. And then you go on from there. How do you deal with that level of fear and uncertainty and not getting any sort of clarity? Like how do you, how? 

Simone: It's such a good example too because that's another wife calling another wife who they're both in the same situation and but she's supposed to be this voice of authority because she's volunteered for this gig and she doesn't know what the hell is going on either.

Whatever. And, you know, so I keep questioning her, and finally she's like, I don't know, I'm freaking out too. And it's such a good example of how we all, like, have to lean on each other, and yet we're all enduring the same stresses, and sometimes it's like, that's, it's wonderful we have each other, but it's absolutely maddening to lean on, try to get clarity from somebody who has as little clarity as you do.

And I don't, I have a great answer, except that in the beginning, I think I say this sometime in the book, is that, you know, I, one of those women who was a, what they're called key callers, you know, she, I asked her because she was, had been through like eight deployments when I showed up, and I said, does this ever get easier?

And really what I meant was, Other than, you know, worrying about the person you love most is the uncertainty. Like our lives are really defined by that uncertainty. You don't always know when they're leaving. You don't always know when they're coming home. And then, and also you're really at the whim of geopolitics and the, that, that, that breeze and that wind, which is really terrifying.

Cause that's so much bigger than any of us and so much more powerful. And she said. You know, it doesn't get easier, but you get used to it. And at the time I was like, that makes no sense. You get used to something, it gets easier. Doesn't it? But I would say that that's true. I feel like I get, I've gotten used to the uncertainty.

And so I live, it's like, I've made bedfellows with it. Like I have welcomed it in and said, okay, like you're a part of my life. Let's be friends, even though I don't always like you, and you know, and I think that that's also just being alive, right? I mean, I think being alive is just like having to welcome in the uncertainty because We do so much to keep it at bay, but it's also, it defines life, is that you never know what's going to happen.

So, I think I've had to become a little bit more, like, zen about it, but I don't always achieve that, I'll tell you that. It's tough, and I worry, and it's harder with kids, because, you know, at that moment I was pregnant, and now I have kids, and it's much harder to explain to them than it is to myself.

Zibby: That's amazing. Tell me when you decided to make it a book and like, when you got this done and how that process was. 

Simone: So I had been writing essays really about this experience ever since I showed up in Georgia and I had had agents reach out to me over the years and say, Oh, you should write a book. And I was like, I don't think so.

There's so many, you know, there's operational security, there's privacy issues, there's all this stuff that I have to navigate. And then they were like, Oh, he should write a novel. Which, you know, is my next project and certainly wanted to be working on, but at the time I, you know, chafed against that idea too because I just felt like this is a reality people don't see into and I feel like it's, if I'm ever gonna write it, I gotta write it true.

Like, I gotta write the memoir. I gotta tell people, like, this is, this is life. And so, Once I moved to Washington, and I had a baby, and I started really missing these women I'd become friends with in Georgia, I started writing about them. And I, because I really realized, it wasn't so much that I'd taken them for granted, but I realized, Oh, this full support network of moms who taught me everything about being a mom in this life, I've suddenly lost them.

Which should have been apparent when I was pregnant that I was going to, but you don't, you know, you don't feel it until the loss really hits. And so I started writing about them because I missed them, and once I started writing about them, it was just like, it slowly kind of started turning into a book.

And I really realized they were the heart of it. Like, they were the heart of the book because I didn't want to just write about my experience. You know, it's hard in memoir because you can't Tell other stories and at the same time, it's really a collective experience we're having both in terms of like modern day.

And also it's a centuries old experience that I don't think has gotten enough airtime. So I wanted to kind of paint that collective feeling and it was. I decided I wrote, I wrote a proposal and once the proposal was done, which was crazy, it took me literally forever. I would drop my baby off at the YMCA daycare and then pretend to work out and I would just like work in the lobby instead.

I mean, it took me probably two years and I was, had a partial manuscript and I sold it and I sold it during the pandemic, during lockdown and my husband was deployed, which was absolutely nuts. And it was, but it was like this great highlight of my life that I've been working towards. But then I turned around and I'm like, who do I celebrate this with?

My two year old or my three year old? And so, you know, it's been a long journey since then. My kids are now Gosh, I mean, I guess there were two and four and now they're five and seven. So it took a while to actually finish it and then get it out there. And it's been a ride for sure, the whole experience.

And I have loved it. It's been a joy. And it's been amazing to watch my kids like come into understanding of what I'm doing. But I'm really looking forward to writing a book where my kids are not that small because it was kind of crazy, which I'm sure a lot of mom writers can relate to. 

Zibby: I mean, those ages in lockdown with no spouse at home, I mean, trying to write, trying to do anything.

I was trying to do anything. 

Simone: I know. And I sold the book and then I was like, sorry guys, I will not be beginning to write this for the next three or four months. You know, it's very. It was not possible. Just getting through the day was, don't, yeah, lest anyone believe out there that I was writing this book during lockdown when my husband was deployed, I was not.

Zibby: Okay, good. 

Simone: I sold it in all that, but. 

Zibby: Sold it. Longer deadline. Very smart. Very smart. What is the novel you're working on? 

Simone: Oh, gosh, I shouldn't have mentioned that. I, I, 

Zibby: Yes, you should have. 

Simone: One of those things I haven't, I. I've just started it and it's, there is a friendship at the heart of it and it is currently set in Lake Tahoe.

That's all I'm gonna, that's all I'm gonna say so far because I literally feel like everything about it could change. So we'll see. 

Zibby: Okay. Well, we will eagerly await the next, uh, 

Simone: Well, it's such a like, I don't know, for me writing, especially fiction, which I wrote years ago and had like once I went into journalism and creative nonfiction, I kind of left it behind.

It's such a dreamy space, especially in the beginning. For me, I'm not the kind of person who sits down and has like an outline for every single chapter until the end, you know, so I hesitate. It's hard to talk about when it's in this very nation state. 

Zibby: Okay, I won't ask any more about it. 

Simone: Yeah, that's it.

Zibby: I can't believe that book podcaster asked me about a book I'm writing.

Simone: I know! What the heck? Seriously. 

Zibby: So off brand. I don't even know. What advice do you have for aspiring authors? 

Simone: Oh. 

Zibby: I love the sigh. 

Simone: Oh, I know. I mean, keep writing. You will, people will say no to you over and over and over again, and I don't think that was something I understood. I wish somebody had told me that.

Instead, I had professors in college who said, you're really talented. It was like, you should say you're really talented, but prepare for a lot of people to tell you you're not, and prepare for the door to be shut your face over and over again. And keep going because, like, you will, first of all, you will just get better and better.

Like, the writing is, like, truly a practice. Like, I see it now. You know, when I wrote this book, I probably threw up 50, 000 words. And it's like, but that wasn't a waste. Like, that was practice. 

Zibby: You threw them out or they're in another document somewhere? 

Simone: I mean, they're not like, I did not burn them or bury them in the backyard.

Zibby: I was like, I'll take your words. I could use 50, 000 words. 

Simone: But honestly, like, I looked back at them recently for some pitch I was doing, and I was like, there's a reason most of these are thrown out. Like, most of these are not good. And I think that that's, that's okay. You know, like it's, it's just a practice.

And so when someone says no, all that means is we don't need this right now, but it doesn't mean anything about you or your work or your ability to sell a book in one or five years time. And so just like try if you can to fall in love with the process of creation because you will always have that. And the more you fall in love with it, I think the better your work becomes.

Zibby: Love it. 

Simone: I'm fine. That's my main advice. 

Zibby: Okay. 

Simone: But I also know it's really hard. Rejection sucks. 

Zibby: Give one piece of advice to any military spouses listening. 

Simone: Gosh. I know. It's so funny. Military spouses love to give advice. And I. I love it. Hesitate to give it because everyone I know is a military spouse is so much tougher than I feel like I actually am.

I think it's just be open to welcoming other people over your threshold, both, you know, literally and figuratively. Like, you will be surprised. You might think you have literally nothing in common with a person and they might become somebody else who is there for the birth of your child. Like they might become somebody who is like, you will never let go of who, who is, you know, found family.

And that's like the gift that's really, I think the biggest gift of this life. 

Zibby: Well, Simone, thank you. This was so great. Congratulations. Thank you. Oh my gosh. 

Simone: Thank you so much. I really, I'm really honored. I really appreciate you. I know what a crazy schedule you have. 

Zibby: It's a joy. It's a joy. This is so fun.

I love it. 

Simone: You know, it's a joy, but honestly, like I just did book tour and it was so fun and it was amazing and the true honor and, but it was also exhausting. Like I came home and immediately got sick. So it's like . It can be a joy and also a lot. 

Zibby: So don't, don't jinx me with any sickness. Please, thank you.

Simone: Oh, I'm sorry. That's okay. 

Zibby: That's okay. If I get sick, it's now your fault. You can just 

Simone: Did you not get sick after your book tour? 

Zibby: I have not gotten sick since, I think, February, but we'll see. 

Simone: That's a good immune system. I'm very because she did a lot of cities and a lot of travel. 

Zibby: Yeah, I'm tired now though.

I got cleaned out. I'm now like, 

Simone: I can only imagine. 

Zibby: Wait, tell me why I said I would go to Dallas for like three hours next week. 

Simone: Oh, well, it's like, it's like, I would say it's like cleaning your house. It's like once you get in the zone, you're great. But if you sit down, like you're done. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Simone: That's like how the whole experience.

Oh, for me, I was just like, Oh, I'm so in the zone. I love it. And then the minute I came home to rest, my body was like, Okay, time to get sick. And you have forgotten how to do any of this stuff. Getting back in the zone is tough. 

Zibby: I'm at the stage where everything's out of the closet all over the floor in piles.

But nothing looks done. So now I have to like, start putting them back in then. But now it's all on the floor. 

Simone: No. 

Zibby: When are you going to Dallas? I don't know. 

Next week. I don't know. Next week. 

Simone: I like that you're taking my analogy this far. I know exactly what you're talking about. I feel like writing a book is like that, too.

That's always my analogy. It's like, you know when you're just like reorganizing everything and it's worse than when you started? I'm like, that's sort of what it's like to be in like the middle of writing a book. It's like, what have I done? 

Zibby: That is what it's like. 

Simone: Eventually, we'll all get organized and put away.

Zibby: Yeah, exactly. For you as well. 

Simone: Well, enjoy your trip, I hope, and an awesome Christmas Day. 

Zibby: Thank you. 

Simone: Bertie and Helen. 

Zibby: You too. You too. Congrats. 

Simone: Thanks. 

Zibby: Bye.