Emma Straub on "Miss Piggy's Guide to Life" || Books That Changed My Life

Maybe one of the best selections we've had in a long time.

As an author, you know you're good when you get a full bleed author photo on the back.

What a picture.

What a picture.

God, I love this. She's dancing. This is a recipe for hair conditioning?

This is How to Be a Woman 101. Oh my gosh. People who are reading this just as humor, it's very funny, but people who only see that are missing the point.

We are in for some fun. Okay, the big question, how did Miss Piggy's Guide to Life change your life?

It gave me a—

Welcome to Books That Changed My Life, New York City Edition. In the spirit of Paulo Coelho, we followed our personal legend all the way to the Big Apple. We're in the beautiful House of the Redeemer Library right here in the heart of Manhattan, and we're joined by bestselling novelist and bookstore owner Emma Straub. And she's here to talk about the book that changed her life, Miss Piggy's Guide to Life by Henry Beard. Hey, while I got you here, if you're an Emma Straub fan and you want a free signed copy of her latest book American Fantasy, we got you covered. We have 75 copies to give away, and to claim yours, hit the link in the description, subscribe, like, and comment, and that's it. We'll cover the shipping and everything else and get it out to you right away. Enjoy the conversation.

This matches my outfit so perfectly.

Yeah, you look great.

That's really well done, everyone.

I love it.

The advance team really worked hard on that. Yeah.

You coordinated the socks with the cup, everything.

You know, I didn't really think about the socks, but that really, that mug, wow.

Okay, before we talk about anything, you're living my dream life that you have a couple bookstores, right?

It's only a dream life if, if you don't own them. Like, it's, it's not a dream life, I promise. I promise. I can give you a thousand reasons why you don't want it. It might not work. Like, I have this conversation frequently with friends, strangers, other authors, you know, somebody's cousin, whatever. People are always calling me and saying, should I open a bookstore? And my success rate in convincing people not to do it is very low.

So let's talk about how it happened. First of all, were you like me? Like, you loved books and you had a bunch of books, and when you would come home, there were stacks of books everywhere?

Well, yeah, I mean, yes, that's—

tell me about the before the bookstore, what your life was like.

Well, so I, when I was in my 20s, I worked as a bookseller at my local bookstore, and I I was already a novelist or trying to be a novelist. It was about a few years before I published my first novel, but I knew that that's what I wanted to do. And to me, working in a bookstore just felt like a secret code that, like, I didn't understand why not everyone worked in a bookstore. Like, it was just the best job where your whole job was just to stand around all day and talk to people about books. Like, what a dream. I mean, there were people who worked at that bookstore who had other more significant jobs there, you know, like with actual responsibilities, but I didn't have that problem.

So you had this innocence in that experience.

Exactly.

You never had to fire anybody. You never were late on taxes.

Yes, you're identified.

You never had to worry about how to pay rent, all that.

Exactly, exactly. And so, My fantasy, my sort of long-term fantasy was that when this couple who owned the bookstore that I worked at retired, that I would take over for them. And about 15 years later, I had done all kinds of things. I'd published lots of books, I'd moved away, I'd moved back. They were closing. And I was like, wait guys, I didn't tell you about my fantasy where I take over. And they were very generous to me as they always had been. And they went over all their books with us, you know, like all their financials with us. And it turned out that it was profitable, you know, like they, I mean, they were retiring, you know, they weren't hanging up their boots because they were failures. It was a total success. And, but they had sold their buildings where the bookstore actually was. And so my husband and I, I don't know, it just like, honestly, my feeling at the time was we have two choices. We can move and live closer to some other bookstore, or we can just open our own bookstore. And opening our own bookstore at the time, seemed like the easier option, and it wasn't. It's not, it's not an easy option. But yeah, we found out they were closing in October of 2016, and we were open by the end of April 2017. I mean, it was like lickety-split, and it has been the most challenging and most rewarding part of my life.

Barnum, what are the— what are the top 5 reasons not to do it?

Okay, the top 5 reasons. Okay, I can do this. Okay, so number 1, you're open to the public, right? Like, you're open to the public, which means anyone can walk in, and that comes with complications. Number 2, uh, um, managing humans, savages. It is rough. It is rough. And, you know, I I always thought, well, I'm terrific with people. I love people. That's one of the reasons I loved working in a bookstore 'cause I can talk to anybody. But it turns out there's a really, really significant difference between being able to talk to anyone and being able to like fire someone or, you know, talk to someone about the fact that they're doing a terrible job and they actually need to get there on time. Stop sleeping.

Yeah. You're parenting in a sense. Oh, yes. The amount of kids that had terrible parents.

Yes.

And then now you got to pick it up.

Yeah, it is. It is. It is really something. It is really something managing people. So. Okay, so those are the first two. Let's see another reason.

Which both are people. Yeah, people and people.

All right, so here's a non-people one, like natural disasters. So like, you know, by which I mean rain, snow, weird toxic smoke, you know, like all of that kind of stuff, the elements. And so that means sometimes it's raining inside the bookstore, you know, or the trains aren't working so no one can get to work, you know, managing that kind of thing. All right, number 4 reason not to do it. You get too many emails.

You get so many emailing you.

Oh God, everybody's emailing me. It's like, I mean, the staff is—

how many emails a day?

Oh, I, I don't know, hundreds. Oh, probably. I mean, I don't— I'm not an inbox zero. I was never like an inbox zero kind of a girl, but now it's just— I mean, the number is in the thousands and I just don't pay attention to it.

Yeah, like my philosophy on email is if it's important, they would text me.

Oh, 100%. Or, or at least they'll, they'll they'll write again. You know, like if someone sends you one email and that, and your like lack of a response means that something horrible has happened, that's really, that's their, that's their fault. That's their fault, really. Okay. Number 5 reason not to open a box.

Oh, okay.

Well, let's just, I'm just going to say something controversial. Too many books, too many books. People send you too many books.

That's impossible.

I know, I know, I know, I know. And yet it's true that like we are moving, my husband and I are moving soon in a few weeks. And one of my like thoughts, my bright thoughts was, oh, maybe some people will lose my address. You know, like they won't know where to find me, which is not true 'cause they can always find me. You can find me at the bookstore. But yeah, people send me so many books that I don't want. People ask me to do so many things that I don't wanna do.

Like what?

Oh, like blurb, write a blurb.

Yeah, that takes a while.

That kind of thing.

And then if their book isn't good, you have to pretend like you're busy.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So those are my top 5 reasons.

How did opening a bookstore change your relationship with your personal library, your books that you love? Oh, it's amazing.

It's made it so much bigger. Although I will say if I was a smart person—

Wait, do you just, one for me, one for the store?

I mean, well, it's true.

That's my dream.

Yeah, I mean, it is true that any publisher, any publisher will happily send me a copy of anything. You know, like that's terrific. That makes me so happy.

Are you moving because you need a bigger place for more room for books?

I will say we have so many bookshelves. At home now.

I would love to see that.

And there are more.

Stacks?

They are going, oh, there are so many stacks. There are so many stacks. There are stacks in every room.

See, only a book lover understands the stacks and then the intentionality to read them all and the intentionality to organize them.

Yeah.

Which, you know, you'll spend a Saturday organizing them and 2 weeks later you got another stack.

No, the stacks, they multiply.

The purge.

I do purge. I have purged recently, which felt really good. How many did you purge? Oh, I mean, definitely hundreds.

And did you just take 'em to the store?

No, no, no, no, no.

Donate?

Yes, I've donated them either to like used bookstores or there's a lot of them were children's books and we work a lot with this fabulous organization in Brooklyn called the Brooklyn Book Bodega, which is this amazing place. You would love it. It's like a giant warehouse just filled with kids' books. And this organization just goes to where kids are and gives them books. Oh, that's so nice. Because what they, their mission is that apparently the science or the studies have shown that The biggest predictor of future success in life, I don't even mean in school, is the number of books in your household. So we're great, we're doing great, you and me. We're doing great. But for these kids, they're trying to increase numbers of 100+ book households in Brooklyn. That's it.

Oh, it was so good.

So good, right?

They're making the world a better place. Yeah. Okay, so you didn't mention in your list of the top 5, The financial part? Oh yeah, no, no, that's a, I mean, like, you know, that is it a profitable business?

We are, yes. I mean, what I will say is that when I talk to people who have bookstores in other places or, you know, in small towns or just in trickier spots, I don't know how that works. You know, all I know is how to run a bookstore in the neighborhoods where we have our bookstores, which were, extremely supportive of an independent bookstore for decades before we got there, the one that I had worked at. And they are affluent, extremely well-educated neighborhoods. And so I knew we would be fine. They like books. I knew we'd be fine. Even if they don't like to read, they still vibe the books.

Books can be a status thing too, right?

Oh yes. Oh yes. That's what we're going for. We're like, don't you need more books? Yeah.

So when I put together my library, one of the things that surprised me was the books that I love are not interesting to other people. When you opened your store, what did you learn about buyers versus your personal taste?

Yeah, oh, that's so interesting. Wait, why were your books not interesting to other people?

Well, because I'm like, half of my collection is art or photography books. And most of the people that come are business related and they want books on business and biographies and things like that. So we had to put that at the front.

I see, I see. I mean, your books sound way better. The books that you like sound way better to me personally.

But that's taste.

That's taste, yeah. Well, I mean, it was interesting, you know, in opening the bookstore, thinking about taste, what was, you know, I mean, that was fun and challenging because I knew that we didn't want the bookstore to just be my personal taste. But also that what makes independent bookstores wonderful is, you know, their—

Curation.

Exactly, their curation.

There's somebody there that cares.

Exactly. So you need to have a point of view and a personality and you're, you know, an idiosyncratic system at work.

Yeah, 'cause that has an energy.

Right, right. So it's been interesting to figure out the sort of what that line is like, you know.

What surprised you though about people's taste?

Well, I think that in our neighborhood at least, like I was like, oh, people really are into translated literature. People are into poetry. People were more willing to be sort of challenged than I thought, which was a delightful surprise. And we sell less, you know, what I will lazily describe as commercial fiction than, I mean, I don't know if I thought we would or not, but we sell less of that. Although in our second store, which is in Brooklyn Heights, and the neighborhood demographic is a little bit older, we do sell more biographies, histories, and mystery novels. So it's been interesting to sort of see what, see what works and what doesn't work. And that's, that's the fun part.

Yeah, that's fun. What's hot right now? What's selling right now?

Hmm, um, what is selling right now? Um, I'm trying to think. You know what came out this week that we have been selling stacks of? I'm gonna— I hope I'm gonna get her name right. I think her name is Ella Quitner. It's a cookbook. We sell a lot of, we do a lot of events with cookbook authors, and it's called Obsessed with the Best. If I get her name and the title wrong, just murder me, please. Yeah, we'll fix it. But it's like, it's like a million chocolate chip cookies and a million pancakes on the COVID And it tells you how to actually get the kind of the thing that you want. Because you know when you're reading a cookbook book and you're like, "Oh, these chocolate chip cookies. I love chocolate chip cookies." But then when you go to your favorite bakery down the street, the chocolate chip cookies are actually a little bit thinner and sort of lacy. And you're like, "God, if only I knew how to make a chocolate chip cookie like that." That's what this woman has done, where she presents you with like 50 different options of all of these.

So like choose your adventure?

Exactly. Choose your adventure. Like, oh, you like scrambled eggs, but you know, at this kind of restaurant, whatever, you're like, oh my God, why can't I make this at home? Now you can. That is, I think, number one on our bestseller shelf right now.

That's fun.

Yeah.

Lots of carbs.

Yeah.

I feel like I gained 10 pounds just with you describing that.

I mean, it's possible there are other things in the cookbook, but it just tells you where I am.

You know where you're going if cookies and pancakes are on the COVID Yes, for sure. That's good.

Yeah.

That's really fun. So where did you grow up?

I grew up just across Central Park from where we are sitting right now.

How incredible is that?

Yeah, it was the best.

What did your parents do?

My father was a novelist and my mother was an early childhood literacy specialist. And so I never had a hope for a normal life.

But an exciting one.

No, I know. It's great. I mean, I grew up in a house. I mean, the house that I grew up in looked like this, really. Like, this is where I feel most comfortable is.

So the writing is in the genes.

100%. And more importantly, the reading.

Yeah. So what was the library like that you grew up in?

Oh, I mean, it was a, so I grew up in a brownstone on 85th Street and there were bookshelves on, Every floor in every room. I mean, there was no, like my father, like really until like the day that he died, like in the hospital, was never without a book. Like there were books everywhere, everywhere on every surface. Talk about piles and stacks, you know?

So it was dad, mom?

Oh, her too, her too. I mean, everyone. Oh, wow. Everyone. I mean.

You usually can't have two in a house.

I mean, I would say my mother is more of like a, I would call her more of like a normal reader, but that's only in comparison to my dad. Like, you know, she reads constantly. I mean, she reads probably more than I do. She reads all the time. She's also more popular at my bookstore than I am.

Oh, really?

Where just 'cause she, I mean, she's just there. She's adorable, you know, and she brings treats for everyone, so.

Will she engage with customers?

Oh, you couldn't stop her if you tried. Oh, that's fun. Yeah.

Do you pay her or is it free labor?

We pay her in love. We pay her in love.

That's perfect. Put mom to work. That's fun. So how old were you when you started having relationships with books? Like very, very young?

Yes, birth. I mean—

Was it too big of a jump or were they curating a library for you that was different? Oh yeah.

Oh no, they, I mean, they—

What was their parenting approach to books with you?

It was, I mean, I think it was like oxygen, food, books, pretty much. Like books were of primary importance in our lives. And—

Do you remember the first few that you escaped into?

So many of my favorite books still to this day are picture books from when I was a very small child, like James Marshall's George and Martha books, which are about two best friends who are hippos, George and Martha, just hilarious, hilarious foundational texts for me. Or like Ferdinand Monroe Leaf, is that right? I think so, which I think was published in the 1950s, But it's about a bull who doesn't wanna fight. He just wants to sit and smell the flowers, which I just was like, yes, Ferdinand, me too. I mean, there are so many. I mean, Make Way for Ducklings, Eloise. I very much saw myself as an Eloise. I could have chosen Eloise also.

Yeah, so where did you get your sense of humor from? Mom or dad or both?

I would say, I mean, my dad, my dad was very funny. My dad was very funny. So I'll say my dad.

'Cause the book we're here to talk about is Miss Piggy's Guide to Life, which is pretty funny.

Yeah. Yes, it is.

Maybe one of the best selections we've had in a long time.

I mean, can I also say, just as an author, you know you're good when you get a full bleed author photo on the back.

And, and, huh, what a picture.

What a picture. And also like—

Leibovitz probably did that.

Yeah, I mean, well, 'cause it's in major contrast to this where it's like, this is her glam, but this is, take me seriously, you know?

It's business on the back.

It's like a mullet.

Party in the front and business in the back.

All business in the back.

Or wait, it's the other way around. Yeah. So what kind of kid were you?

I was exactly the same way I am now. I was taller than everybody else, taller than all my friends, bigger than all my friends, louder than all my friends, blonde, chatty.

You were organizing the party.

Yeah, I was organizing the party. I was the center of my parents' life. I mean, I have an older brother and I really very quickly like—

You were the favorite.

Yeah, I was.

Or you took up more space.

Yeah, I took up a lot of space. I took up a lot of space.

So when did you know you were gonna write?

You know, so in preparation for moving over the last weekend, I've been going through a lot of boxes and I found all of these books. One of them was actually labeled Emma's first book. I mean, they were, I mean, there were no letters in them. You know, they were just drawing, like crayon drawings stapled together. So I think—

But in the format of a book.

In the format of a book.

What's the story in that one? I don't know.

I couldn't tell you. It was incomprehensible.

Like, what are the pictures?

Oh, I mean, well, okay, so let's say, let's say, um, uh, it was an artful rendering of, um, some sort of, uh, explosion perhaps. I don't know. I maybe like, uh, there were a lot of animals, uh, rainbows, you know. I don't know. It was an exciting story. That's all I can tell you.

Sounds like Noah's Ark.

Yeah, it was probably Noah's Ark. It was probably that. But I wrote all kinds, I mean, I found all these mystery novels that I wrote when I was like in elementary school. I had a lot of influences.

That's so, so it was, that's just what it was gonna be.

That's just what it was gonna be.

Were there any other exits that could have been taken?

I did, you know, I tried, well, when I was a small child, this tells you how, both outgoing and delusional I was. For a little while, I was like, I'm probably an actor. Like, I'm— I should probably be an actor. And my parents were like, okay, whatever you want. And so I, I signed up for all these acting classes, and then I went on a, um, I went to a— what do you call— like an open call audition. And I was so set when I didn't get the part. The part was to play Danny DeVito's daughter in a movie. Now, I was, I was like already taller than him, like twice as tall, but like easily. I was probably 8 or 9 years old, you know, 5 feet tall. Like, there was no way.

But I was like, so you were, you were competitive?

I was competitive, and I was confident.

Yeah, great parenting. Yeah, yeah, raise high self-esteem competitive kids.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, competitive. I was competitive.

I mean, when you're a kid, you take it too far, but you figure it out, right?

But, but the great news in terms of that is that I was never any good at, uh, sports, you know, so there wasn't too much of an outlet. There was—

did they try to get you to play basketball?

I did, I was on the team. I was on our school team. There were 11 girls in my grade. I went to a very small school. And so we were all on the team. I was one of the centers, but the other center, a girl named Bethany who was brilliant, she went to Stanford. She truly brilliant person. She was also extremely good at basketball and went on to play in the WNBA.

Oh, there you go.

So they didn't need me that much, which was perfect for all of us.

But you, you got the experience. I got the team experience.

Yeah.

That's when they would put you in a game where you're like, oh man, I don't know.

Everyone hangs their head and waits for it to be over.

So when, when did this book come into your life?

So I don't know exactly what year it was. I'm going to say like 1987 or 1988. So I was I was 7 or 8 years old and I just really, I mean, it's a joke, like it's a joke book. It's a humor, it is a work of humor. And yet I immediately, I was like, oh no, no, no. People who are reading this just as humor, it's very funny, but people who only see that are missing, are missing the point. I took it so seriously. I just like, I, it went straight in and I, it truly was transformative to me.

I believe you. 'Cause in the humor, there's always a little seriousness.

Yeah.

Right?

Yes.

Okay, so let's kind of, let's just, let's go through it.

Yes, okay. Oh, I'm so excited.

And so also for the audience, would you say this is your copy?

That's my copy and stains reader's own. I don't know what I spilled on it at some point.

And this book is out of print.

Yeah.

It's hard to get.

Yeah.

And really fun. I don't know why it's out of print.

I know.

God, it's so great.

Isn't it so beautiful?

She's just the best.

Oh, she's the best. She's the best. That's a good one.

We are in for some fun. Okay.

I'm so excited to see what you've marked here.

Yeah. So we've highlighted some stuff, right? So let's just go to the intro right there.

Yes.

Go ahead. You can read that.

Okay. One of the things that I love about it is that There's a lot of French. Like, Miss Piggy likes to make things sound a little bit French often. Okay. Okay. It has heart, soul, body, shine, and bounce. It is a kiss on the hand, a port in the storm, a seat on the aisle. Huzzah, I'll take it. And if an ill-informed bookseller attempted to convince me to substitute it, this book, for some flossy novel about sad people in big houses by a woman with three names, I would reject it politely, 'But without hesitation, take back your flossy novel about sad people in big houses by a woman with three names,' I would insist, indicating with a quick movement of my hand in what contempt I held such trash.

So good. And then the best part is it's autographed.

Oh, and it's autographed. I know, she's got a great—

With the little XX.

Yep.

Oh, so fun.

I know, she's perfect. I believe that the man who wrote it, I believe worked at Knopf, which is the publisher. But it's well executed. Yes.

Okay, so then we go to the first part, beauty.

Oh, yes.

Which will be your second tab.

Yes.

And they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

"Naturally, it is not easy to become beautiful. It requires hard work, patience, and attention to detail. It also takes a certain firmness of purpose. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye." Yeah.

So what is your personal advice on beauty?

Well, yes, I think that's exactly it. That's exactly it. I mean, and if I may, just above what she says is she's talking about different kinds of beauties, right? And like Miss America, she says, now try to bring one to mind, a Miss America winner, any of them. You can't. But now picture Lauren Bacall or Katharine Hepburn. I mean, to me, what she's saying is like, don't be boring. Don't be like everyone else. What matters is your supreme confidence in yourself. And that's—

being authentic to yourself is beauty.

Yes. And if anyone else doesn't see it, is their problem. Damn right, Miss Piggy.

That's right. Yeah. The next one is so funny. So this is a recipe for hair conditioning, which I might be mistaking as The same thing as a cup if you were making a cupcake.

Wait, where are we? Oh, oh, oh, oh, here. Sorry, I missed one.

Miss Piggy's Petite—

Oh yeah. Oh yes. No, no, this is the best. Like, the book is absolutely full of this. And this is what I mean when I say, like, I took it so seriously. Okay. So Miss Piggy's Petite Coiffure Style and Smile Hair Conditioning Recipe. 2 tablespoons butter, 1 It's 2 teaspoons butter, 1 tablespoon flour, 1 cup milk, 1 ounce pounder chocolate, 1/3 of a cup sugar, 3 egg yolks, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 3 egg whites. Step 1, heat the vanilla, sugar, and chocolate. Beat in the yolks, then whip in the vanilla and the egg whites. Place in the oven on very low heat. 2, go out and have your hair done. 3, come home, remove mixture from oven, cover lightly with whipped cream. And eat. Yeah. Um, I think that's great.

Did, did you make this?

I, I don't think I did, but I could have, and I might today, you know. I mean, that just seems, um, you know, she's prioritizing. First of all, it's—

it—

this is extremely efficient, what she's saying, you know. Like, you do part 1 first, then you do part 2, and then by the time you get to part 3 You know, part 2 and part 1 are already done. Like, you've made the thing and you've gotten your hair done. That's a good use of your time.

Yeah, you're solving a lot of problems.

Yeah. And you have something delicious.

It's so funny. So then the next, the next one that we tapped was Make the Makeup Rules.

Yes.

And you don't have to read those, but it's just hilarious.

Well, but, but it, but it's, I mean, it's very—

Never use yellow lipstick.

Oh, yellow lipstick, horrifying.

Can you buy yellow lipstick?

I'm sure you probably can, but you never put anything on your face that comes in a can.

Makes perfect sense. Not everybody knows that.

Yeah. And never use anything that stinks, stings, or stains.

Never braid your eyelashes. Yeah, I mean, that would never powder your tongue. No, never.

Oh, never.

God, I love this. She's—

oh, I— yeah, I mean This is How to Be a Woman 101. Shall I read the "It's Sensational"?

Yeah.

About perfume. Okay. It's sensational. You get the pun. Okay. Perfume is a subject dear to my heart. I have so many favorites. Arôme de grenouille. Okay. I don't know what that one is. Oakenofaki. What is that? I don't know what that one is.

It's one of her favorites.

Au contraire, Fume de ma tante, Blast du Past, Kermesse. That's another good one. Je suis swelle and Attention s'il vous plaît, to name a few. But here again, it's a matter of personal taste. And so I will confine myself to giving you then the answers to the most often asked perfume questions. How much? A lot. Where? All over. When? Anytime. You know she smells good.

Like, yeah, she's— I mean, yeah, it's clear.

Oh yes, oh yes. But it's mental health.

You really should bring this book back.

I know, I know, I should.

What do you think it would take to get the rights to it?

There's probably a bunch of layers. Yeah, I mean, if it was someone else, I think I actually really probably could and would do it.

It's very well executed.

It's so good. I know. But the Muppet, the whole Muppet empire, just imagine.

Yeah, there's a lot of lawyers.

Yeah. I'm sure there are. Okay.

So now we're talking about depression.

Right. Okay, how to cope with what makes you mope. The basic trouble with depression is that it's so depressing. You see, even if you started out in a good mood, you'd get gloomy if all you did was sit in a chair in your dressing room with the shades pulled down watching afternoon television. But when you're already in a lousy frame of mind, you just make yourself unhappier and unhappier, and the sadder you get, the less you feel like doing anything that would cheer you up. It is what psychiatrists call a vicious circle. I think they call it that because you feel the way goldfish must feel going around in circles in those teensy bowls, looking at that stupid little castle all day and nibbling on stuff that looks like sawdust.

Great use of analogy.

Yeah.

Makes perfect sense.

Oh, and such good puns.

Vicious circle.

Fishious. Fishious.

So do you remember any part of this that, like, really stuck with you?

Oh, yes. I mean, so, so, so much of it. So much of it. The, the, I think we'll— well, okay, so wait here. There's one on the best on the next page. Like, this is what I mean. Like, it's, it's, it's, it's a joke, but it's like, this is, this is good advice. How to be your own best fan. Whenever you are really down, just sit in front of the mirror and remind yourself of all your talents and accomplishments and successes. When you have examined things reasonably, you will find that you have nothing to be depressed about at all anyway. That's the idea. Good luck.

Which is like the advice you get from a friend.

Right.

Like, well, it's not that easy.

Right. Yeah. It's not that easy. But I also think that like thinking about everything that's good, you know, everything that you have, you know, that's— she's right.

Yeah. It's a good context to start from.

Yeah. Okay. So one of the sections that I really that I really did think was hilarious was the diet section. Because, you know, as you have no doubt observed about Miss Piggy, is that she is—

Curvy.

She's curvy. She's voluptuous, right? She is 100% gorgeous and she's big, right? And I too was big. And I saw Miss Piggy and I thought, well, great, okay, so I'm bigger than all my friends, you know, these little pipsqueaks, but they're pipsqueaks. And look at me, I'm a woman, you know. I remember shopping for a dress when I was in middle school at the Betsy Johnson store that was right around the corner from my dentist, which was fabulous because whenever I would go to get my braces adjusted, I would also go to Betsy Johnson Betsy Johnson and try on fabulous dresses.

And I remember you were wearing Betsy Johnson at that age.

Oh yes.

Wow, you were hip.

I was very hip.

So you got to explain to the audience who Betsy Johnson is because it's not around anymore.

I know. Well, so Betsy Johnson, like, was kind of punk rock. Yeah, she was very punk rock. She— so, so she—

I think she's a pioneer.

Yeah, she, she was like—

and she owned her own boutiques, hanging with Andy Warhol in the '60s, basically.

And then she became this, like, punk rock fashion designer who was wild and like her stores were all wild and like the, and patterns, jewelry, everything. And I loved her so much.

So great.

I loved her so much. And I would go, I mean, I knew all these women, you know, young, cool women who worked at the store 'cause I was there so often just sort of hanging out and trying things on. And then, you know, if it was my birthday or something, my parents would buy me kid dress. Um, but I remember trying on a size 6, and you know, these were— it was grown-up clothes. Like, my friends were still wearing like kids' size whatever, and I just remember thinking, like, this is probably like 1991 or something. So like Cindy Crawford is also a size 6. I don't know if that was true, but it was just in my head. I was like, so we're the Like I did not, I had no sense of like, oh God, I'm already as big as like a grownup adult woman. I was like, no, no, I'm a supermodel. And that comes from this, truly.

That's great.

Yeah, I know, Miss Piggy, give every girl a copy of Miss Piggy. Yes, but so I remember a lot of the diet section because this is, was, and remains how I, I feel about going on diets. Okay, so this diet is in many ways my favorite, she says. It's flexible and it provides a wide variety of dishes to choose from. Here's how it works: get 6 or 8 of the most interesting-looking diet books, pick the most appetizing recipes from each, and organize them into meals. So that way, you know, you can have, you know, Like the grapefruit diet, she doesn't like that, but it lets you eat chocolate cake. So she takes the chocolate cake from that. Another weight loss regime says no dessert, but you can have French fries. So she takes the French fries. You know, this is just, this is common sense.

Yeah. And it's making me hungry.

It also helpfully tells you how many calories it takes to do lots of things like applying makeup. You know, looking for a purse, you'll expend 30 calories. So like, your total expended calories in a day are enormous. Polite discussion with waiter, that's 5 calories you're burning. I love her.

Then there's a section on entertaining, how to be a host. Oh yes, exercise.

Yeah. Oh, exercise. The exercise is great. Um, wait here, let me find Where are you with exercise?

Exercise is right after entertaining.

Okay, I got it. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh gosh. Yeah.

My 40 Winks Daily Dose Shape Up. Lie down on bed in comfortable position with head on pillow.

Yeah.

Do one cover pull-up. Grasp, cover, pull to chin, then release. Slowly close eyelids. Begin sheep count.

Right. I mean, that's, you know, that— what more could you possibly need? Like, you might already be fit and not even know it. Here's a test you can take. This— okay, so give yourself 1 point for each yes answer. Okay, if you score more than 5, you should stick to a low calisthenic diet. Okay, number 1: Are you able to take elevators without getting winded? Are you?

That's—

yes. Do you run to the phone at least 3 times a week? Yeah, maybe. Oh, I don't know. Can you walk 5 blocks with a broken heel? See, that actually sounds very hard. From a standing position, can you get 50 cents, uh, in change out of your purse without setting it down? Can you make and eat a cake in under 1 hour? With your hands at your sides, can you swing your hair in a complete circle? Article, right? Like, you're fine, you're fine.

You got— she covers fashion, finances.

Oh yes, and jobs, and jobs. Um, yeah, I mean, the, the fashion— I mean, this, this is like, again, I think this is very good advice. Like, it's— she gives you the basics, the optionals, and the boo-boos. Um, I don't agree with all of it, but I agree with most of it. Um, oh yeah, there— this one, this one is really good. So, good looks you didn't have to be born with. It's much easier than you would think to cut the sort of figure you've always dreamed of. For the thin look, buy clothes two sizes too large. For the rich look, leave a couple of tags on accidentally and add zeros where they will do the most good. For the important look, this one I really believe, wear your coat loosely around your shoulders like a cape. I mean, that'll do it. And for the glamorous look, choose plain-looking dining companions. Oh, I love her. Yeah, I mean, she's just got, she's got, she's got tips for everything.

But I love the finance part. It says how to avoid weight loss in the coming lean How not to go hungry.

Yes. Oh yes. This is another one. I mean, so growing up as I did on the Upper West Side, my parents were cosmopolitan people. We had lots of cool people in our house all the time, whatever, whatever. Were they great cooks? No. But this is how I learned to cook. It's on page 80. Dinner de takeout à la Bell Telephone. Smart chefs realize that the easiest cookbook to use is the Yellow Pages. And the handiest appliance in the kitchen is the telephone. With it, you can turn out more delicious meals than with your oven, your broiler, your blender, and all your pots and pans combined. It's a pleasure to use, just about impossible to burn yourself on it or cut yourself with it. And best of all, when you're finished, it doesn't need to be washed. I mean, that, this right here, this is how I learned to cook.

Is this still how you cook?

I mean, no, I've gotten much better.

Instacart now?

Well, no, I can cook now, but this is how I learned as a child. I mean, I still—

That makes sense.

I remember.

Especially living in New York.

Yeah, well, the phone number for the restaurant on our corner that was, it was called Jackson Hole. There are a few still in the city, but not that one anymore. It was 212-362-5177. And I would call and order food. I mean, we just, I ordered, we ordered dinner all the time. And, um, this is— this— it's just— it's verisimilitude Miss Piggy offers. Because yeah, you can— you can be fancy, right? You can plate it. I think people do this all the time. And oh yeah, and don't admit it.

I've— I've seen that happen. Yeah, it— yeah, I participated in that. The romance part is pretty interesting.

Oh yes.

Is this how you kind of— like, one question I like to stump people with, they like, as soon as you ask the question, they like look at you like, oh, I have the best answer. And then they realize I have no answer. Nothing comes out. Is what is love?

Oh, yeah.

Like, that's a hard one.

Yeah.

Miss Piggy.

What is love? Love is the most wonderful thing in the world. When you are in love with someone, you want to be near him all the time, except when you are out buying things and charging them to him.

That's love.

I mean, but what I really did take from the romance section is that there is utter devotion and nothing less than that will be tolerated.

Hmm. That was your expectation?

Yeah.

What about a kiss on the first date?

Oh, well, what does she say? Oh yes, it depends on how you feel about him. Here's my little rule from the days before I met my current husband. 'If he picks up the check, give him a peck. If it was Dutch, no such luck.' Right? I mean, that's fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah, she— Oh, this one, this one, on my 8th grade yearbook, we could put little quotes in, and this was what I had. You quoted This is what I quoted. Only time can heal your broken heart, just as only time can heal his broken arms and legs. Oh my gosh. I don't know, my teachers just let me do it. I mean, I guess they weren't actually—

They weren't gonna say no.

They weren't afraid that I would commit actual violence. But yes, no.

Can a woman ever really know what's in the heart of a man?

No, never. She can only guess. That is life. The good news: men can only guess what is in the heart of a woman, and they are lousy guessers.

Oh my goodness.

Oh, it's really profound.

Yeah. And then I think this, this last one, uh, Reading Matter.

Oh yes, yeah. Yeah, right. So this is in her travel guide, right? This is what you should pack with you. Reading matter. Bring copies of your favorite magazines plus several light entertaining books, not some dreadful bestselling novel with words like crash, doom, or horror written all over the COVID Yeah. Yes, you should. One should carry several novels. All the time.

Do you have a kind of system for traveling with books?

No, I mean, I did try this year. This year I thought, okay, I'm gonna try to move with the times and I will try to read digitally as well in addition.

The devil.

I know.

And you regretted it, right?

Well, no, I just, I mean, That thing, I don't know where that object is, but it's nowhere near me. It's in one of the stacks.

You're better than that. I know that.

No, no, I know. But I thought I would try mostly because I read so much. Most of what I read are advanced copies and I have to read them months and months ahead of time. And sometimes it's before the book is actually in in a galley and I hate reading bound manuscripts. And so it was supposed to help with that, but it would never, it would never ever act as a replacement for actual paper books for me. But it turns out I can't even use it for what I got it for. And—

So you're back to packing books.

Oh yeah. I mean, but my son, so I have two sons, they're 10 and 12. And when the 12-year-old packs a suitcase, it's actually perfect. Because, you know, it's like opens to two sides, and one side gets filled with his clothing, and the other side gets filled with books. It means his suitcase is so heavy. It's so heavy.

Um, it has wheels, right?

Yeah, it has wheels. It has wheels. He's strong. He's not that strong, but we are. We can get it up into the overhead compartment. Um, but yeah, I, I— it's terrible. I mean, I don't know what to do about it. There's no solution. But I am always just—

one of the videos on the channel with the most views is me going through my everyday carry. But I have a photography, like, bag, and where you would put the camera stuff, I put the books.

Oh, that's smart. And that's smart.

Yeah, even when you go through TSA, you just open it up, right?

So it's got like a flat zip at the bottom, sort of.

Ah, so I can fit a bunch in there.

Wow.

Because I, I'm always like 3 or 4.

Yeah, well, right, because how do you know what you're gonna want? How do you know when you're gonna finish? You don't want to be caught.

To New York, I only brought 2, and it felt weird. Yeah, that seems dangerous, but the one's pretty dense. Yeah, okay, I'd be lucky to get through it.

All right, it's Proust, but that's, that's something else.

What's great is in the back she then answers your question. She's anticipating what questions you might have after reading this, just to help out a little bit.

Yeah, no, this, this one that you marked I think is funny because I actually disagree with it, but I like the emphasis. Okay. Dear Miss Piggy, for some reason my garden this year produced a bumper crop of cabbages, and I don't know what to do with them all. Are there any good cabbage recipes? Signed, Green Thumb. Dear Green Thumb, no. I will say for anyone who's looking for an actually a really good cabbage recipe, a friend of mine who's a cookbook writer, published one in the New York Times cooking section recently. That's a roasted green cabbage Caesar salad kind of thing. Like, that's what she calls it. It's with roasted chickpeas. The roasted cabbage is so delicious that you will lose your mind. So I think Miss Piggy would like it too if she—

being around you is making me hungry. Yeah, that sounds great. Also, I'm just guessing Miss Piggy wasn't into kimchi or anything.

Yeah, no, no, probably not. Fermentation, it's not her bag. Oh yeah.

So this last one says, dear Miss Piggy, your book was excellent, splendid, superior, first-rate, top-notch, a classic, superb, magnificent, marvelous, wonderful, sensational, the best. I'm sorry to see it end.

Yeah, yeah. And so, and so is moi, she says. Oh, revoir, God bless, and kissy kissy.

Kissy kissy is like— yeah, right now.

I know, the design of this book is really—

oh, it is. And you could do so— you could do so much with it too if, if you republish.

Yeah.

So the, the big question: how did Miss Piggy's Guide to Life change your life?

It gave me a clear model, a role model. She is unapologetic. She sometimes— she has some violent tendencies, but she is supremely confident. She is brilliant. She's hilarious. She's happy. And that's just what I wanted to be. And, and she taught It's amazing.

So fun. This is by far and away one of our favorites.

Oh, thank you.

So good. Okay, so then tell me about your book.

Well, what I was thinking about on the way here was what do these two books have in common? And I think the answer is they give into and delight in pleasure. I think that's what they have in common. So American Fantasy is about a 50-year-old woman, recently divorced, who goes on a cruise. She's supposed to go with her sister, but then her sister breaks her leg and can't go. And the cruise is a fan cruise for the sister's favorite boy band from the—

Yeah, and I love how you started off with that.

Yeah.

Which I won't show because— but it's, it's great how you started.

It's the schedule. Yes. Um, and you know, she goes in and she sees all these other women, mostly women, 3,000 women who are who look like they're packed for 12 weeks at sea with enormous suitcases and all kinds of bibs and bobs. And they're all wearing clothing that is for this boy band. And they look sort of ridiculous to her, all these women. And then over the course of the, cruise. Um, she relaxes into it, I would say, and she rediscovers, um, this part of herself that has been dormant for some decades. And, and it's really about pleasure in middle age, which I think is, is a, is a glorious part of middle age as I, as I see it, you know, that when you don't, when you're not as worried about being cool or what's hip or whatever, and you can actually truly devote yourself to the things that you love, whether it's building yourself your dream library or going on a boy band cruise full of 3,000 screaming women, you know, it's about truly letting yourself Letting the soft body of your animal love what it loves, to quote Mary Oliver, who would have hated a boy band cruise, but you know what I mean.

What was your inspiration to write it?

Well, much like this book, I discovered the New Kids on the Block in about 1988, 1989. And I fell head over heels. And, you know, they were talking right to me. They were talking right to me through my little pink boombox and my Walkman headphones. And I just loved them profoundly. I, you know, cut their pictures out of glossy teen magazines and, wallpapered my room with them. I would talk about them with my parents at the kitchen table, you know, as if I knew them. And then, you know, I would say I grew up and grew out of that sort of obsession, certainly. But I always thought of them as sort of childhood friends of mine, you know, like I kept tabs on them. Them from afar. And I just, I never stopped wondering what it was like on the other side and sort of how they were doing. And then in 2022, my father died and I had written this book. I, you know, my previous book, "This Time Tomorrow" was all about my father dying. And it was wonderful. I loved writing it and I cried every day and I just thought, I thought, I don't want to cry anymore. I want, what can I do? What book can I write that will bring me deranged joy? And I thought, this, I can do this. And so I went on a Nukids on the Block cruise.

By yourself?

Absolutely. Because I mean, was I alone? No, I was surrounded by my people. People, you know, I was with 3,000 strangers, any of whom would have helped me had I had an hour of need. But no, I didn't want to go with any of my friends or my husband or any of the other people who love me because I didn't want to see it through their eyes. I wanted to see it through my eyes and my eyes alone. And I wanted to experience it looked as much like a ghost as possible, you know? Like, I didn't want to be perceived.

Yeah.

And I knew, you know, if my very kind and willing husband went with me, you know, I would've had to deal with his view of what was happening. And, you know, all that.

He probably wasn't a New Kids on the Block. He didn't experience it the same way.

He's like a punk.

He wasn't cutting up.

He's a punk. Kid from Florida. No, he did not enjoy the New Kids on the Block. But I will say that now he and my children, we did just go see the New Kids on the Block in Las Vegas a couple of weekends ago, and they all loved it. They love it. They sing all the songs. Yeah. But that's where it came from, that I wanted joy.

So being reintroduced to that audience, your first thing was judgment? Like you were kind of like—

Yeah, I think so. I think so. It was, well, I think really it was more like a self-protective, oh, that's not me. That's not, I am so different from that. You know, I'm a cool adult woman with cool adult taste. You know, like I'm, sophisticated. I'm a New York Times bestselling novelist. I own two bookstores. I read The New Yorker, whatever. And all that's true.

All that's true. But that, in a sense, is what keeps you from the joy.

Right? Yeah.

You have to leave that. How many days did it take you to get past that?

Oh, I mean, I was past that. It very—

Did you wear a New Kids on the Block t-shirt?

Oh, I've got so many.

I was wearing one yesterday.

Did you wear one on the cruise? Did I wear one on the cruise? I think I packed one. I don't think I actually wore it. But what I discovered on the cruise is that I am a— Miss Piggy would be ashamed of me, is that I was quite lazy about what I packed. 'Cause I was sort of packing for, I don't know, I'm—

Research.

Yeah, no, I like just my, I packed my regular clothes. Clothes. And that was the wrong choice. That was the wrong choice. These women, they were comfortable.

That's the '90s, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. So it's a little different fashion sense.

Yeah. No, people really, there were a lot of group costumes. People really put serious, serious effort into what they wore. People changed their clothes. I mean, after I was on the boat, I understood why people had so much luggage. Luggage because like it was only 4 days. So I just had my little pulley suitcase. But these women showed up with steamer trunks because they changed their clothes like 6 times a day because it was like, you know, this party night where you have to dress like Madonna or whatever. It's like, they really had costumes and I didn't. But that's because that's who was there. You know, like it was—

That's what it was about.

Yeah. And it was like, I mean, I don't mean to make it sound like men are useless, but I will say, who is it who plans the Halloween costumes for the children? Who is it who decorates the house for Christmas or Halloween or whatever? It is middle-aged women. Middle-aged women. And these middle-aged women were taking all of those skills and actually—

Deploying them.

Deploying them for themselves, which was beautiful to behold. Like, it was beautiful. And that's really what I appreciated the most about the cruise. And what really informed the book was that—

Because Thanksgiving or Halloween's about us.

Yeah.

And that's about them.

It's about them. It's about them. And these women, What I love about them is that they are in the middle of their lives, right? They've got children, they've got aging parents, they're taking care of everybody in every direction, you know? And this weekend, or these 4 days, they have put themselves at the center and they have given themselves this gift. And so many of the women who I talked to or who I I like have interacted with on a lot of fan Facebook groups is that like this is what they have been saving for, planning, looking forward to all year. This is their Super Bowl. And so I felt honored to behold their majesty, you know?

How many from that cruise are gonna get a copy of this from you?

Oh, I don't know. I did—

Did you take any names?

I didn't take any names, but I did write the other day on one of these Facebook—

Forums.

—fan groups that I'm in, that I've been in for years. I did say, "Hi everybody. So I wrote this novel about my experience, inspired by my experience on the cruise. It's a fictional boy band, but I really think you'll like it. And I wrote it for you. I wrote it for you." And I was nervous. Because I didn't know if people were gonna say like, "How dare you?" Or I don't know why they would actually be upset or if they would worry that it would be disparaging. But it was so wonderful. All these women commented and no one who I'd actually met on the cruise, but so many women wrote and said, "Oh, I've read so many of your books," or "I loved this book of yours," or whatever. So I feel relieved and well supported.

Oh yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure they're excited. That's really fun. What did you learn about yourself on that cruise?

Well, it was the first time that I'd gone away by myself for that long. I mean, it wasn't that long. It was like 5 days, but that was the longest that I'd gone had gone away. And even though it was work, I mean, it was research and I, you know, was, you know, nose to the grindstone truly the whole time, it did feel sort of freeing just to have to care only about myself. I mean, to only have to feed myself in the day as opposed to my two children who refuse to eat the same thing just to spite me. You know, like, yeah, just to only have to worry about myself, where I had to go, where I had to be, felt incredible. And this sort of reminded me of like a previous version of myself, not in a sort of nostalgic, like soft focus way, but in a sort of a literal way. Like, oh right. I used to be able to come and go as I pleased, and I will again. I will again. You know, there were so many, I would say I'm 45 and I was probably on the younger end, I would say, of the fan base. So there were a lot of women there who were in their 50s, 60, and they were free of a lot of the obligation. That I still have, you know, like take having children at home. You know, there were a lot of women on the other side of that. And so I feel like I can see it down the road and it doesn't have to be sad and scary. It can also be thrilling where you can go on as many fan cruises as you want. Had you been on a cruise before? I had not. I had not.

What, just, I've never been on a cruise, so I'm just curious. Also, like how many times do they play?

Oh, they— it's every day.

The problem with that is they're trapped on a boat with the fans. They are so trapped. So how do they—

They are deeply trapped. What's their experience? Well, that was what I really wanted to know. I mean, their experience is they are cloistered, you know, so they have their own special part of the boat, you know, like a floor that's just for them. That the fans are not supposed to access. But they are really tucked away and imprisoned by the people who love them best, which I think makes it not an ideal experience for them. And it also depends. There are, I think, that, you know, for the, you know, the New Kids on the Block, there's 5 people. But I think for any, for any group like this who does this kind of cruise, you're going to have a range of experiences. You know, there are going to be the real extroverts who like to roam the halls and, you know, surprise people and that sort of thing. And then you're going to have the people who feel totally anxious and totally overwhelmed overwhelmed and just want to lie in a dark room when it's not time to be on stage.

So how many times do they play on the cruise?

They do some, at least one thing every day.

So it's like every night. It's like shrimp cocktail with them.

Yeah, kind of. I mean, it's like they have their things every day where you're guaranteed to see them all every single day. There are concerts, this one does.

Do you get to interact with them?

With them? Well, it depends what you think of as interacting.

How many people are on the cruise? Like 3,000. Oh yeah, so that's impossible.

Yeah. For them. Oh, well, although there is one, I don't know if they do this on all fan cruises. I think they do different degrees. It's actually one of the women I met on the cruise that I went on said, I did a Bon Jovi, I did a Bon Jovi cruise and he did not do this. But what they do. Bon Jovi's doing it. Bon Jovi's doing it. Listen, he's got a rosé company. He's doing rosé pop-ups and whatever. But what they did, the New Kids on the Block, was they have a photo, how do they phrase it? Like a photo opportunity where every single person on the cruise lines up and in groups of 10 gets their photograph taken with the whole band. So it's 15 people in a picture. Exactly. So there's one woman or person— it's not all women, it's mostly women, 98% women. Uh, so it's, yes, two, two people flanking.

If you were a single middle-aged guy, might be an opportunity.

There was one man. There was one man on the cruise who I absolutely put in my novel because, I mean, he was my arch nemesis. He didn't know it, but he was— I just thought, like, one of the things that was so beautiful about the cruise is that as a, you know, woman on my own, I felt 100% safety. Like, I was not— I I felt 100% safe, which is an unusual feeling for a woman, like out up until 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning. Like I just felt safe except for this one guy who had his arm around every woman and he was drunk. And like, I mean, people were drunk, people were drunk. And this guy, I was like, this guy is ruining everything. But yes, to your point, like, if you're a heterosexual man— Single.

You could really look up the Bon Jovi cruise or whatever.

Yeah, yeah, yes, yeah, yes.

So did you get your picture with them? I did. Yeah, that's so funny. Was that an upsell or was it included?

No, it was included. Were there any upsells? See, that's the thing. Bon Jovi, I think, is an upsell. You gotta—

I took a friend who's super into Star Trek to a Star Trek convention. This was a long time ago, and I bought him the package where he could get his picture with Captain Kirk and Spock. Wow. And literally, so like, he, uh, you know, he's sitting there on a stool like this. Yeah. And they run 300 people through there. Yeah. Like, you can't talk to them, don't look at them. Yeah.

It's literally Yeah. Yes. It's a machine.

It's a machine. But it was like $550. Yeah. For those two pictures.

And he'll, I imagine that your friend will treasure that picture forever.

Oh yeah. Just being in the room. Just being in the room.

Yeah. And that's what it was.

And it brings back all those memories. Yeah.

And it was like a conveyor belt of—

Yeah, you can't sit and chat. They gotta get the picture, right?

Pheromones, I would say. Like, it was like— and I felt it too. I felt it too.

What other words were in your mind?

I don't know. Well, I don't know, like hormone, hormones, pheromone. I mean, that's what it was. It was like, well, and smells, you know, because I mean, to go back to Miss Piggy, you know, how much perfume? A lot. Where? Everywhere.

Like, in a group like that, maybe not the best perfume, like, right?

But it was like everyone— quantity was done up. Again, I missed the memo. I'm in— I'm there in my, like, muumuu that I'm wearing on the cruise because I'm comfortable and it's pink and I like it, you know. And— but people are dressed to the nines, fully made up at 9 o'clock in the morning and wearing so much perfume. And you just walk in this room and You can't breathe, you can't breathe. And then it's that feeling of like you're waiting to get on Space Mountain, you know? And like your line is sort of snaking, snaking, snaking, and you're getting closer, you're getting closer, and your adrenaline is rising and your anticipation is rising. And then you snap into place and you say, "Hello, hello." Hello. And then it's over, and you're sent back into the world as if nothing has happened.

Did that feel like coming full circle?

It felt— it made me feel so sympathetic to these men. Because, I mean, for the women, I mean, these women had been planning this this for months, you know, like arranging themselves, arranging themselves into groups, right? Because you, you're with 10 people, so you, if you're there with your friends, you want to be together and whatever. You want to be with the right guy, you know, like favorite one, your favorite one. And there were, it was, there were deals happening in this room. They call it the Room of Doom where these decisions are made. The women call it that. And there are deals. So funny that they have their own language.

Oh, they have their own language.

And let me tell you, there are some of the members who are not as popular, but you need a complete group in order to get your picture taken.

So somebody's got to accept. Somebody's got to stand with the— Yeah, I think I know which one you're talking about.

And so people are out there being like, I'll give you a bottle of wine, or like, I've got this fancy hand cream or whatever. They'll like, to, to, to offer.

So what did you give up? I gave up nothing.

I, I didn't care. I didn't care.

Oh, you didn't? You didn't have a favorite?

Oh, I had a— no, no, I did have a favorite. I had a favorite. I just didn't need to stand next to him in the photograph. I would— why didn't you—

why did— why didn't you leave their real name in?

Because it— because it's fictional. It's fiction. It's fiction. Like, the book is—

kind of sounds closer to reality than fiction.

Kind of like Miss Piggy. It's like— Well, you're right. I mean, I guess my feeling— There's a little truth in everything. Yeah, my feeling about writing fiction is that if you make something fiction, you actually give yourself permission to let so much truth in. Like if I wrote a memoir, it would be less honest than this. Like, I would be more self-conscious. I would be so worried about what everyone thought, you know, like what the fans thought, what the band thought, what my husband thought, you know, like I would be really worried. But in fiction, I give myself permission to go go full tilt. Tell a better story. Yeah. And so the band in the book is fictional, and I tried so hard to make sure that there was no one-to-one ratio because also, like, sure, the New Kids on the Block are like my boy band from my youth, but I also wanna make sure that if you love the Backstreet Boys or New Edition or One Direction, It's fine. It works for you too. Or if you hate boy bands and you're like, "Boy bands suck. They make terrible music," you're gonna recognize your point of view in this book too. The human experience. Yeah. What was important to me was not that I make them my favorite boy band, but that I made them actual humans, that I made them 3-dimensional humans, complicated, flawed, beautiful people.

Okay, so just for the record, who's your favorite?

Uh, Joey McIntyre. I would not have guessed that. Oh, he's the best one. I mean, there's no contest. And I did, over the course of writing this book, I did make friends with him in actual life, and, um, I just, my taste was superb. I had superb taste as a child.

Does he read books? He reads books. Oh. Yeah.

I mean, honestly, like that's not my only criteria for whether someone is a good person, but it's— But it's a nice surprise. No, it's really close. Like it's that, that really matters. That really matters to me.

But you didn't know that when you were younger, right?

No, no, I had no idea. But somehow. Somehow, I just had a sense. You knew. I just had a sense. He was the one.

That's so great. That's so fun. Well, that's amazing. But we appreciate you doing this. This was the best. Absolutely the best. Thank you. And we will support this when it comes out. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm so glad. And honestly, to bring the wisdom from Miss Piggy to more people's lives, I feel like I've done my good deed for the day. Day. You have. We appreciate it. Thanks everybody.

We are so excited to announce the Books That Changed My Life website. We made a way for you to show your book pride and that you love books. Hats, tees, hoodies. Check it out, link in the description. Everybody needs a self-help hat.