New York Times bestselling author (and former flight attendant) TJ Newman returns to the podcast to discuss WORST CASE SCENARIO, a chilling, heart-stopping, unputdownable thriller about a commercial plane that crashes into a nuclear plant in the small town of Waketa, Minnesota. TJ reveals how her conversations with pilots about their deepest fears led to the book's terrifyingly plausible premise. The discussion delves into themes of personal sacrifice, ethical dilemmas, and the balance between duty and family. TJ also reflects on the pressure of writing after her previous successes and gives updates on the screen adaptations of her earlier books.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, TJ. Thanks so much for coming back on. Moms Don't have time to read books to discuss. Worst case scenario.

TJ: My pleasure. Thank you for having me on again. 

Zibby: I have taken this book now on several flights, and my kids are like, put that book down, remember? 

TJ: This one's cover, I, you know, I always say the books are great to read on planes because it makes, like, a whole experience out of it. You've got the sights, the smells, the seas shaking with turbulence.

It makes it like a Disneyland ride but I do get the cover on this one. I would maybe take the dust jacket off. 

Zibby: Well, it goes to the fact that I have been having trouble putting this book down because every time I pick it up, and I was trying to explain this to my kids and I'm like, okay, imagine you're in the middle of like a really great movie and then you keep having to pause it and only go back and watch for like five minutes.

Like all you want to do is like go back and watch it because that's what the book feels like. Like you're in the middle of like watching this cinematic movie in your, you know, in your own head because it's so gripping. So that's how I feel. 

TJ: That's such an interesting way to describe it. I mean, people have told me that the book, you know, they can't put it down and it is that sort of, you know, propulsive read, which is what I was aiming for, which is always great to hear, but no one's ever described it as like pausing a movie.

That's such a good description. Yeah. 

Thank you for that. 

Zibby: How I feel. Okay. So tell listeners, this is now your third book. Tell everybody what it's about and, and include the story that you tell in the book about interviewing all the pilots and how you came up with the idea. 

TJ: Awesome. Yeah. So when I was doing research for my first book, Falling, which takes place on a plane, as does my second book, Drowning.

I was a flight attendant for anybody who doesn't know I did it for 10 years. That's how I wound up writing aviation thrillers. And when I was doing research for Falling, my first book. I would talk to pilots all the time about, you know, like, like the nuts and bolts of flying, like policies, procedures, you know, the craft of flying an aircraft.

I would ask them questions, but I would also ask them questions about the, uh, psychological and emotional side of being a pilot. And the one question that I would ask every time I'd talk to a pilot was, what's your biggest fear as a pilot? What's your biggest fear? And the answers kind of surprised me because they started getting fairly repetitive, fairly fast.

There's a lot of similar fears. They fear wires getting caught up in power lines. I think that goes back to when they started flying, you know, with smaller airplanes, they fear decision making making the wrong call in an emergency or freezing up and not being able to make any call at all. They think about their families and they worry about, you know, turning their spouses into widows and widowers.

And like I said, the answers, they became fairly similar. There was a lot of the same stuff. Nothing really caught my eye until one day I had a pilot who looked me dead in the eye and said, my biggest fear is a commercial airliner crashing into a nuclear power plant. And I stopped and thought he was joking, honestly, so I started, I kind of like dismissed him and started saying, you know, all the reasons why I wasn't afraid of that.

You know, it's like we live in a post 9 11 world. They've, they've shown that these, these facilities are fortified and able to withstand, you know, an incident like that happening. This isn't, this isn't real they've shown us that this is this is fine And the whole time i'm talking he's just listening to me and nodding and when I finish he goes and that's exactly what they want you to think and it was one of those like hair on the back of your neck stands on edge moments where you're like oh, you just said that with a confidence that I'm not comfortable with.

And so that was the moment years ago that the seed was planted. And when I went back to write this book, which I wanted to be big, I wanted to be as big as I could possibly get. I knew I had to go bigger than falling, had to go bigger than drowning. How big could I get this? And I remembered that and so I started researching to see, you know, was there any validity to what he said?

Is, is there, is there anything there? And it did not take long for me to, to discover that he knew exactly what he was talking about. And I have to tell you, Zibby, the research for this book terrified me. I mean, to the point that I almost didn't write the book because I was not sure I wanted to live in the world that I knew I was going to have to create for the time that it would take me to write this book.

The research terrified me because the premise for this book is completely plausible. 

Zibby: As I was reading it, I was like, okay, I know this all seems scientific and real, but I can't like read it and go about my day to day life believing that this could happen. So I'm going to put this back in the like things I'm not going to worry about category because I can't handle it.

I'm going to go with it for the book, right? Because if you keep all these scary things like too close to the surface, you, you're like paralyzed. 

TJ: Sure. You know, it's a fascinating thing of being a human, right? Like, Horror movies are one of the most popular genre of films out there. Thrillers and mystery and true crime, we love it, can't get enough.

It's this weird balance of we love to be terrified, yet also don't want to be. I think that it has something to do as humans that we like that sort of dress rehearsal. Like, that's why I like the type of stories that I tell, which are all like, I was a flight attendant, so I'm safety and security focused.

As a flight attendant, I was trained to look at worst case scenarios, to look at something and go, what can go wrong? And what am I going to do about it? Because that's a way to be prepared in case something does happen. And I think that we like to read and watch those stories. sort of stories because it lets us get close to that fear and get comfortable with it and know ultimately that things are going to be okay.

If you, it's sound, the book sounds terrifying and it is, and it genuinely is but if you've read any of my books, you also know, like, I come from a place of hope and that there's always a way out and that, you know, I like writing survival stories and rescue missions and showing the best of us and how we meet a problem you and and fix it and I'm no spoilers for the book.

Um, I'm not saying, you know, everything gets wrapped up but that is the angle that which I come from it and I think that that's how I sort of combat that fear because like I said in this book I'm doing research and i'm reading, you know Government studies and i'm reading pieces by you know, the former chair of the nrc and they're laying out in no uncertain terms Yeah, there are there are situations that if they come to pass would be catastrophic on a level that we do not have a solution for.

And this is, you know, these are the officials that are saying this. Some of my research, like, it would be covered in highlighter and pen and then it would just stop and in the margins, I remember at one point I just wrote, Oh my god. Because it's just, it's, it's crazy. And these plants are in our backyards.

They're right, they're right there. I flew over one just yesterday. 

Zibby: I have to Google now where they are because you also make a point that they're just in ordinary communities and people just going about their business and maybe they think, you know, should we settle here? But usually they just, you know, it employs people in the village or the town or whatever and it's just like part of life and you just go about it with that suspension of disbelief in a way that like something bad could happen, happen at any moment. But, but you really teach the reader, and I found this so fascinating, all about like the canisters, and the pool, and the evaporation, like what should we do, and taking us through the scenarios, and making cases for both. And as the people working in the power plant debate how to handle each scenario with like the clock ticking, and the president on the phone, and all the things, they're like, we learn about, you know, the, the canisters and the, and like seeing the one guy.

Oh my gosh. I mean, we learned, I learned so much that I never even understood about how the plants and the radioactive waste, all of it was taken care of and how. Risky it is so risky. 

TJ: You and me both. I learned a lot too. And I think, you know, when I flew for 10 years and I'm separate of my stories, I'm always interested in just flying.

I'm, I'm, I'm a curious person like that. And I loved understanding how things work. And I got good at asking pilots so many questions about flying and about the aircraft, which is an incredible thing. Incredibly complex piece of machinery with all sorts of integrated systems that talk to each other that you can't learn how to fly a plane, you know, by reading an article on it or, you know, even being on a plane, you have to understand this.

So I would have all these questions with pilots and they'd go through all these complex, very scientific, very technical, very, you know, everything about how this works. And I'd listen and then I'd say, okay, so basically the this to the that, and then if you do this, it's like that, and they'd be like, yeah, that's that.

So I think I, through that, I got good at sort of looking at a really complex situation and going, okay, what is, what's the essence, like, but what is like the most important thing that if you can at least grasp that, then you'll be able to kind of fill in the rest of the blanks and I think that helped me with my research for this book because, boy, I didn't know much going into it either.

And there's, it's a, it's a huge, complex, uh, that's kind of incredible and fascinating and beautiful in a lot of ways. 

Zibby: And I don't mean to, I didn't mean to like overstress that this is about science and facts because really the book is about the people and it's about their relationships and their innermost fears.

And I think one of the biggest themes in the book is like, what is your allegiance to science? to society at large versus to protect your own family. Like, how do you, and how do you carry both of those things when you're trying to do something good, but it comes at a cost? Where is the line? And that is endlessly fascinating.

TJ: That is such a good, good, good way to put it. What is your allegiance to? I mean, and, and it's an ethical dilemma that really doesn't have a clean answer. You know, we're talking about an event that could mean literally catastrophe for generations to come for this country and for the world because it's all interconnected.

But at the same time, the people on the ground, the individual people, what about them? And if it's not about one individual, what is the whole it's a, it's an ethical dilemma of, you know, it's a, it's a trolley dilemma, which, you know, a trolley problem, what do, what do you do? And it was fun to dig into that.

And I, in the book. There's a, not to give too much away, but there's, you know, the overarching problem of what do we do? We're facing a nuclear meltdown that could literally end life as we know it. We're also at the same time, there's a parallel storyline of a rescue mission of one person. And I think I did that for the reader and also for myself to remind us why we're fighting this hard.

I think it's hard to grasp the totality of something as big as this could alter life as we know it for the planet. That's hard to grasp, to a certain extent. And so I think I kept toggling back and forth between those two storylines to remind us again, like, what are we doing this for? If we're not willing to work this hard and sacrifice this much for one life, then what is this?

Because the whole is nothing but the individual. 

Zibby: You had that great line when the firefighters are feeling very pulled and one of them says, like, I didn't become a firefighter to not save one person. Like, they couldn't in good conscious turn away. So yeah, I mean, there's that and like what's right in front of you versus what's conceptual, right?

There's like that primacy effect and like immediacy of it, but then also the families of the firefighters and the families of the people in the plant and you know, particularly one boy and what happens and you know, it's one of those things I think about a lot, and it came up, you know, even in the pandemic with all the people who are on the front lines, right, but they had their own families, like, but they had to go serve, and in the military, and like, how much sacrifice do you give, right?

And how much does your family even understand, especially young kids, when that is what you're doing? 

TJ: Yeah, that you're, you're completely and totally right. And that's, I actually hadn't thought about it in terms of the pandemic, but flight attendants, that's my background. You know, we're first responders.

We are first on the scene, you know, that's what we're on board for. We're not there for service. We're there for safety and security. And, and that is what we're for. So my mind is kind of with that, with this book. Which was a departure from the first two. It wasn't, I mean, it's not a spoiler to say that the plane crashes on the fifth page.

So it's like this, this book takes place not on the plane primarily, but in this community, in this town. And I turned the focus to firefighters, first responders on the ground. And that's so interesting to think of the pandemic, to think, you're right, there were, during that time, you know, I remember seeing, you know, pieces, Where, where doctors would be renting a house or something and would go to work and then come home and not see their own family just because it was like, we didn't know, we didn't know anything.

And they were willing to sacrifice, put themselves out there every single day in front of this and not see their family and not bring it home to them. Like every single day, it's, it's, it's, it's one thing to be a hero in a moment. It's another thing to make that what you do day in day out and every choice that you make.

Notice we're talking about doctors and nurses, right? We're talking about firefighters. We're not talking about Thor. We're not talking about Iron Man. You know, these are everyday people that do these heroic things and, and I'm, I always love looking at that angle because That's us. That's who we are as people.

And I saw every day on the plane in a million different little ways. And when I would sit on the plane and I'd look out at these ordinary people, these strangers that I was with that I knew nothing about, and I would think, you know, okay, if something goes sideways, what are we going to do? Who are these people going to become?

Who's the hero? Who's the coward? Who's the comic relief, you know? And I love looking at the, the people that would encounter an issue and say, what would they do? And this, this plane crash happens at a nuclear facility in a small rural town. You know, the, the type of location that doesn't get the same attention as a big market.

You know, it's not New York city. It's not Los Angeles. It's not Chicago. This is, you know, rural Minnesota. How much attention is a nuclear power plant built in the seventies getting in rural Minnesota? 

Zibby: Oh my gosh. So you mentioned the need to, to go bigger with this book. Did you feel pressure writing it after being so successful?

I mean, it's one thing to write, you know, as you did sort of in the galleys on airplanes and all of that, and then it becomes like a blockbuster, but then to have to do it again under your own shadow, what was that like? 

TJ: Yes, there's, there's absolutely pressure there. I think anybody, no matter how successful or, or big or small or anything, if you're putting art out into the world, I think there's always going to be that pressure of how is this going to be received?

What is this? What is, what is this going to look like? What is this going to feel? And yes, I have been fortunate enough to have some big success. Um, so yeah, I always feel like I have. Big shoes to fill that I've set down myself, but I have to say it was kind of nice. I didn't feel the pressure on this one that I felt on Drowning my second book.

I think the pressure of a follow up was so terrifying because it's like the question of like, Can I do this? Was it a fluke? Am I a one hit wonder? Was that just like, I got lucky. I don't actually have what it takes to, to do this. I'm not actually a storyteller. You know, it was just a one time thing that hit the right timing and the right moment.

And when I think when drowning, I was able to prove to myself, which is the most important person you got to prove to of like, you can do this. Keep going. It's okay. It's always going to be scary there. You're always going to feel pressure, but like you can do this. And so I think writing this one, I was able to let that pressure go, which was a weight lifted off of me that I'm so glad is, is, is gone.

So this one, yeah, there was pressure, but it was, it was different. It was more just, I don't want to disappoint. I want to be able to keep delivering. I know that I can, but I want to keep doing it. 

Zibby: That's awesome. Speaks well for all the other books to come. Are you, did you already write your next one? Where are you on that?

TJ: Working on that. I've got a few projects that I'm working on. You know, this book was an interesting departure, I kind of dipped my toe in the water of, you know, like I said, can I do this if it's not on a plane? Is this something, not only can I, I write stories like this if it's not set in the world of aviation and on a plane, but will the readers go with me?

Is there any interest in this? And, and the response so far has been overwhelmingly positive that, yeah, they'll, they'll go with me and they'll, they'll, you there along for the ride plane or not, which is, which is great because I've got a million stories that take place in the world of aviation on planes.

Cause you're not a flight attendant for 10 years and only have a couple of good ideas. Like I've got a lot of ideas in that world, but I've got a lot also that aren't in that world. So we'll, we'll, we'll see. We'll see. 

Zibby: What is your update on screen adaptations and all that. 

TJ: Yeah, so Falling and Drowning are both moving forward and that's very exciting.

Falling is with Universal Pictures. I'm doing the adaptation for that. I'm writing the script, which has been the best, um, learning experience imaginable and has completely changed me as a novelist has completely changed me as a novelist doing the work of taking this story that I wrote nearly 40 drafts to get to the point that it was finished product.

I knew this story backwards. I lived with these characters for years and I thought I'd figured out the best way to tell this story and then you go, okay, now, how do you take this 300 page book and turn it into a 100 page script? And how do you translate everything in this book that's inside, internal, and, and translate it into a medium that is entirely visual.

It has been the most amazing learning experience and it has forced me to become a relentless editor as I'm writing because like in a script, you have to trim all the fat away. Nothing's on the page unless it's the story. And it forces you to look at every scene, every scene, every plot point, everything I go, is this actually necessary?

Is this something that serves the story, or if I take this out, will the story still be the same? And it just forces you to get a laser focus into story, and it, it changed the way that I wrote this book, that I wrote Worst Case Scenario, because I just had a different angle because of that so falling falling is a great movement forward drowning is with warner brothers and we have academy award nominated director of Captain Phillips 1993 the second Bourne movie Paul Greengrass directing which is wild and adapting that one is uh, steve clovis of what his resume is insane, but his most well known credit is a little, little set of films, you know, the Harry Potter films.

So. 

Zibby: Yeah, just a little. 

TJ: Just a little thing. I'm not sure if you've heard of this, this series called Harry Potter. So yeah, knowing that, that this guy who took one of the most, you know, Iconic and well known and well loved literary universes and translated it into a cinematic universe that is as equally loved that are totally separate, yet he managed to maintain it.

The essence of what those books are in a way that satisfied all the readers like, that's an order so tall, I can't even imagine and he just knocked it out of the park. So to know that that is the guy who's handling my story is just, it's, it's very exciting. 

Zibby: That's amazing. 

Oh my gosh. I mean, so many fun things.

Like, aren't you just so excited? 

TJ: I am. There's a lot of fun stuff and it's like, you know, I don't talk about it every day, obviously. So when I have a conversation like this, it's like, Oh my God, look at that's happening. It's just like a fresh reminder and it's just, it's wild. I'm so, I'm just so grateful.

It's just insane. It's all just insane. 

Zibby: Well, it's so deserved. And I have to say, this was my favorite of your books. And I am, as you know, I mean, they're all good. They're just keep getting better. I mean, it's not to say they weren't really great, but like this, I don't know. This was, this is my favorite of them all.

TJ: It means a lot. I had to say a lot of people have said that and it kind of surprises me to tell you the truth, but this one, the emotional center in this one, the, the relationships in this one, I, I think they go a little deeper. Yeah, then the other two into that sort of very human parental child. Yeah, I think they go deeper in it.

That means a lot. Thank you. 

Zibby: I think you have a lot of like the aftermath of loss in the moment, but like, and even in backstories of so many characters and families and it's, it's like a, a side character in the whole thing. I know they're facing imminent death, but, but there is a lot of real loss in the way it affects.

It's families and people and emotions and all that that courses through it that feels very, very authentic. 

TJ: That's such an interesting way to put that too, that it's like a presence, like a side character. That's really interesting, but yeah, it is, you know, past, when you're looking at your future, I think you can't help but confront your past too.

And when this is with the interconnected community of a small place where everyone's got past and, you know, that comes forward and wrestling with that. Yeah. Yeah. This, this book, this was hard to write. I'm not going to lie. This book was really hard to write and emotionally, I think to dig into that and, and I think as a writer, sort of standing on the precipice of if this is it, if you're facing the end, what comes up and I think it, it, it was tough to write.

It was tough to write and, and I'm grateful that readers seem to be, um, connecting with it in, in those kind of ways too. 

Zibby: Are there pieces of your past that you mind for this sort of sadness, the way like an actor thinks about something sad before he starts to cry? 

TJ: I think so. I think that, I mean, like. I think as a writer, I don't know how to separate myself from what I write, you know, we always dig from the well of our own experience.

So yeah, there is, there's a lot of, there's a lot of me in this book, there's a lot of me in all my books, you know, and then the same way there's, it's none of me, it's the same thing. It's like, none of these characters are me and all of these characters are me. I think, you know, as a writer, again, I don't know how you separate.

the two. So yeah, this one, this one's intimate. I went through a lot of plain x boxes writing this one. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. No, no, it's in, in a good way. Like, look, this is what, this is why I write. This is why we read is to going back to talking about scary things. It's like, This is how we have dress rehearsals for fear, for grief, for loss, for regret, for hope, for, you know, triumph, for bravery.

Like this is how we have dress rehearsals in a fictitious way of emotions that in real life. We may not want to touch, we may not want to go there, it may not be healthy for us to have a dress rehearsal of our own mortality and our loved one's mortality every day. That's not probably a place we want to live in, but to be able to go into it for a few hours, for a few days, you know, as you, uh, Read a book or watch a movie.

That's a healthy. Um, I think it's good self care. It's like emotional health, self care of sort of putting those emotions on, but being able to take them off to, I don't know. I think you're right. What advice would you have for aspiring authors? Keep going. You, you know, the stories that you have to tell and that you want to tell and the only you can tell, tell those.

I, you know, it's fairly well known. My story is kind of out there that, you know, I, I was not handed this. easily or or quickly. It was a overnight success that took a couple decades to get there. And, you know, I faced a lot of rejection getting to this point, but I just knew I knew in my bones that my first book falling would connect with people if I could just find the right person to help me get it out there.

And so I just didn't stop until I found that right person. And I think that writing such a uphill, excruciating, you know, thing to do, vulnerable thing to do, scary thing to do, and trying to publish work is that to the nth degree. Gotta believe in it and you gotta want it. If you're doing this and you do believe in it and you want it out of there, you're just masochistic and you just feel like self punishment.

You know, it could be that too, but I have a feeling it's probably more that you believe in the story too and that you believe that this should be out there. So just keep going. All you need is one yes. And they're out there. 

Zibby: Love it. TJ, thank you so much. Thanks for coming on and thank you for the edge of my seat entertainment.

And I can't wait to do our event together at Zibby's Bookshop. 

TJ: I know! I know, I'm so excited. 

Zibby: August 26th? 

TJ: Yeah, August 26th, 6pm. 

Zibby: Yeah. It's 26. 6 p. m. So if anyone is listening, well, if you'll be in the LA area at that time, come hear us talk about even more stuff at Zibby's Bookshop in Santa Monica. Thank you.

TJ: Thank you. This is wonderful. Thank you.