October 7, 2021 • 37 mins
Christine Pride and Jo Piazza join Amy to talk about their new book: We Are Not Like Them. This novel tackles the hot button issue of race + friendship and they hope the storyline they have created will be a great conversation starter for so many relationships.
FIRST THING: Why is it so hard to talk about race?
SECOND THING: Interracial friendships and why it is so hard to make them
THIRD THING: How writing a book together nearly blew up their friendship
FOURTH THING: Writing a book about social justice and cancel culture in 2021
Link to purchase We Are Not Like Them:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1982181036?ref=exp_radioamy_dp_vv_d
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Okay, little food for you sol life. Oh it's pretty Bay,
It's pretty beautiful. Thanks, beautiful laughs, A little moth kicking
(00:30):
four Happy Thursday. For today's episode, I am joined by
Christine Pride and Joe Piazza and super excited about the
novel that you both wrote and talking about the importance
of this novel here on the podcast today. So the
book is called We Are Not Like Them? And why
(00:53):
don't y'all just break down what inspired y'all to write
this book together and um, the special meaning behind it
and how it's going to be a great even conversation
starters for other friends that might be reading it together.
Oh my gosh, yeah, I mean, we want more than
anything for this book to start great conversations. Christine was
(01:13):
my This is Joe Hi, by the way, I always
forget it's harder in audio, and Christine was my editor
on my last novel, and we became fast friends. And
another thing that's hard to tell in audio is that
I'm a white woman and Christine as a black woman,
and we decided to write this story together about two
lifelong friends, a white woman and black woman who really
(01:36):
have to reckon with race in their relationship. For the
very first time in their adult lives as a partnership,
so that we could each bring our different perspectives on
race to the table. But we wanted to put it
in a novel. We wanted to put it in fiction,
in a story that at its core is about friendship,
because we want to make it easy and accessible for friends,
(01:58):
for book clubs, for anyone to start what we think
is a very important conversation about race in America today. Well,
I want to touch on four things specifically with you
all today, And the first thing would be why is
it so hard to talk about race? And then I
want to get into yeah, interracial friendships and why it's
(02:18):
so hard to make them, and then also writing a
book together as two friends and yeah, I know there's
even a story of how it, you know, almost blew
up your friendship. And then the fourth thing being writing
a book about social justice and cancel culture, because that
is something that's very real that everyone kind of has
(02:38):
to think about in this day and age. So let's
start with the why is it so hard to talk
about race? Actually, this is something it's Christine here. Uh,
this is something that surprised me as a black woman
because I I have always and I feel really fortunate
to have had a lot of interracial friendships from a
young age. I mean, I think a lot of it
is just by virtue where I grew up in suburban
(02:59):
mary and um, and so I have always been having
these conversations about race. And you know, as a black
person in America, you can't avoid talking or thinking about race,
you know, the family dinner table. It's something that I've
been doing since I could actually talk, and before that
I was listening and absorbing, you know, And so it's
always been obviously a part of the fabric of my life.
(03:22):
And then when Joe and I were working on this
novel together and really starting to get into these conversations,
it really became clear to me and I I really, frankly,
just being transparent here, didn't quite understand before how scared
white people are to talk about race. And there's a
lot of reasons for that. I think some people are
just afraid to say the wrong thing or to be misinterpreted,
(03:43):
or that it just feels so uncomfortable to them that
they wanted to avoid it. And then there, of course
the people who just don't care to talk about race,
right that just feel like, this doesn't matter, and this
is not something that affects my life, and I don't
need to do that, So why would I kind of
covers the gambit and so learning that and really really
having that sink in and really having that come up,
(04:05):
and you know, even Joe and I's conversations, it made
the book that much more even mission oriented for me
almost in terms of this book being actual being a
way for people to talk about race, um that feels
both relatable but also at a little bit of a distance. Right,
You're not necessarily talking about your own experiences, which hopefully
(04:28):
you get there and it's harder to do. But this
is a way for you to talk about race via
our characters, and that can be a good baby step
into these conversations for a lot of people who are
just now having them for the first time. Yeah, so,
I mean, these are fictional characters, But how did y'all
design them intentionally? Like I guess, or maybe give an
(04:49):
example of something that characters encounter or go through that
might spark up a conversation in a book club or
between two friends that are reading it, Like, how would
it ignite that conver station about race? Yeah? Absolutely, I
mean when we were writing, we are not like them.
We both completely wrote each character. We both wrote the
black character and the white character together. Everyone thinks, oh
(05:10):
my god, the white lady must have written the white
character and the black lady must have written the black character.
That's not the case. But we did bring our own
conversations to the fiction. And like Christine said, she as
a black woman, essentially you know, has a PhD in race.
She's been talking about this her whole life. And yet
I came to this and as very educated woman, i'd
(05:31):
call myself like, you know, like I have a big
circle of friends, but I don't have any close black
women friends or black men friends. And so no, I
was not comfortable talking about the ins and outs of
race beyond the superficial. And I want to be really
honest about that, because I think a lot of people
can relate to it. Like we want to say that
we that we feel comfortable, but a lot of people don't.
(05:52):
And so we had to have a conversation where I said, Christine,
I'm like, why don't I feel comfortable talking about some
aspects of race or so justice or the recent police
shootings of black men, and a lot of it is
because I'm afraid I'm afraid of saying the wrong thing.
I'm afraid of sounding stupid. Um, I'm afraid of sounding
ignorant or at the worst, being offensive when I didn't
(06:14):
mean to be offensive, and you brought up cancel culture,
and of course I am terrified of saying the wrong thing.
And so we put that directly on the page in
our book where our white character says to our black character,
I don't talk about race with you because I don't
know what I should be saying. And she's vulnerable and
she's honest and she's scared, and it's not necessarily okay.
(06:38):
But I think that a lot of white readers will
see themselves in our white character gen when she says
I'm afraid I'm afraid of sounding stupid or saying the
wrong thing, and then with her they'll be able to
move to the next stage, which is, okay, how do
we talk about it now. I love that it's fiction,
but it helps gives us a guide of how to
actually engage in this type of conversation, because I mean I,
(07:02):
as a white woman a percent didn't start having these
conversations until probably about a year and a half ago
because of stuff that was in the news and prompted
me to do so and made me take a real
hard look at my relationships in my life and how
I was just going about kind of not addressing things
because they weren't right in front of me. But then
(07:23):
at the same time, I was like, oh, wait a second,
I'm raising two black children, so I need to start
paying attention, and I need to start making some shifts,
and I need to start having real conversations, especially with
some of my friends. Fortunately, I felt I could be
super open with and comfortable and inviting them on the
podcast and us we recorded it out so that other
(07:43):
people could hear and maybe here what we were doing
and and mirror it. But still, it's even after you
put in the work and you've read some books and
you're having the tough conversations. I'm just admitting, especially for
any other white women listening right now, like it's still
scary at times, because, like you said, Joe, the number
one thing we don't want to find. So I haven't
read your book yet, but I ordered it and I
(08:05):
am super excited because I think that this will be
and maybe my listeners will want to do it too,
and we can kind of do a little mini book
club and engage and talk back and forth about it,
because we've been looking for a novel to do it
with and maybe this will be the perfect one. Oh yeah,
we would. We would love that. And if you guys
want to do a little book club, will come back
and you can talk amongst yourselves without us, but then
(08:26):
we can come answer any questions that you want for
the whole group. We did one last week with the
company Heineken, and the conversations that came out of it
were amazing. Christina and I both cried because we had
men that read the book, men who were not our
target audience, a white man and a black man, and
they were just so open about race in ways that
(08:48):
we never expected. It was. I thought it was the
coolest thing that we've done so far. Okay, I'll take
you up on it. I think this sounds so fun,
and we need to do a little book club and
do a virtual meeting or hang time, and I think
having y'all there would be so fun. So go back
(09:15):
to how y'all's friendships started, and you know what that
even looked like. Because some people that have been looking
to diversify their relationships. They look around, They're like, well,
this is harder than I thought. And then they wanted
to be genuine too, Like you want you don't want
to force things, but sometimes you have to step outside
of your bubble to meet people. So how did it
(09:36):
happen for y'all? Well, Joe and I actually met working together.
I was her editor at Simon and Schuster, where I
was still working full time as a book editor. UM.
And you know, in a way, that's an unconventional way
to meet, but in a way it is representative, and
that our society is so segregated socially, meaning like the
activities that we do and where we live in schools, etcetera, etcetera,
(09:59):
that oft times work is the most diverse place we're at. Right.
Our offices are where we see the most people that
look different than we do. UM. And so Joe and
I met in that capacity and a very professional capacity. Um.
But it quickly tipped over into a friendship and that
way that when you meet somebody, there's you know, kind
(10:21):
of that meet cute spark, and we just had so
much in common and we had so much fun working together. UM.
So we worked on her novel Charlotte Walsh likes to win.
And then we did another project together that I was
publishing it Simon and Schuster. That was a tie into
the television show Marriage Vacation, which is a show set
of publishing, which is very fun um but we had
(10:41):
to do that very quickly. That book had a four
to five week deadline, and so that meant we were
really collaborating together, less like writer editor and more like
co writers, you know, in a in a Google doc.
And that just gave us another sense of how fun
it would be to work together and how well we
worked together. So I had had this idea kicking around
(11:03):
about an in a racial friendship that's affected by a
police shooting, and the more we talked about it, the
more it made sense for us to write it together,
bringing both of our different perspectives and experiences to the table,
and that that would be a richer, better book and
a more unique opportunity than if each of us wrote
(11:25):
the book separately. And part of that is because you know,
Joe is privy to conversations that I'm not privy to
as a black woman, right like she is hearing what
other white people are saying, and that people would not
necessarily ever, say in front of me and vice versa. Right,
I'm in all black spaces a lot where we have
conversations amongst all black people, you know, that are very
(11:48):
different than the conversations that you have in quote unquote,
we call it mixed company. And so by bringing both
those perspectives to the table, right, we're allowing the reader
to I mean eavesdrop almost if you will, right on
both sides of things and see what the characters saying
here in separate spaces and then what they say to
(12:10):
each other. Uh. And that is where the uh, you know,
interesting dynamics lie. And that is where there's a lot
to learn, and that is where when we have conversations,
there are more open and honest in that arena right
where where people are coming together, that's where the progress
is made. No, I love that. You know you mentioned
the shooting, but y'all interviewed real life people in different
(12:33):
professions that have been through something like that and incorporated
their stories into the book. What did that look like?
We did? We did? And you know, I want to
figure out on what Christine just said too, and when
you just said to me, as a white woman who
does want to diversify my social circles. It isn't easy,
and I joke all the time, but there is some
seriousness in this, and like, what am I supposed to do?
(12:54):
Like walk up to the one black woman in my
yoga class from my neighborhood and be like, would you
like to the Bachelor with me? To make a new
friend of any race? As hard as a grown up,
I think, like I just I haven't expanded my social
circle really except for Christine in years. So I think
that we do have to give people grace, and our
(13:15):
biggest tip is step outside your comfort zone, like go
to that town hall meeting that you might not normally
go to on school zoning, or go to a book
reading by a black author that you might not normally
have on your t V red list, to put yourself
in a place where you might be the minority, and
then it may be easier for you to start up
some of these conversations. But yes to the other question,
(13:36):
I'm a reporter. I've been a reporter for twenty years,
so I report all of my fiction the same way
that I would a New York Times or wallt Shaet
Journal story. And Christina and I did so many interviews
with police officers, with police officers, wives, with shooting victims,
with the mothers of shooting victims, all because we wanted
our characters to be real human beings. None of this
(13:59):
is fuck and white. All of these issues live in
a world of gray that the media is terrible conveying
and also terrible like giving us a place for common ground.
We didn't want anyone to be a clear cut villain
in this book. We wanted everyone to be a fully formed,
fully flawed human being that has good and bad and
(14:22):
absolutely everything in between. What happened with y'all's friendship in
the making of this book, I just saw like a
teaser that there was some sort of a blow up,
And you know, I think that anybody listening right now too,
they might not be writing a book together, but they
may work with a friend and there may be certain
things that come up, So you know, just sharing whatever
(14:42):
happened with y'all might help someone. Well, really honest about that.
I mean, part of it is that writing a book
is just really hard to do period um, and then
writing a book with somebody else's really hard to do.
Their creative differences, they were logistical challenges, I mean, there's
a big learning curve for us um to dive into
this process. But we also always say that Riley and Jin,
(15:04):
our characters were very young when they met, right so
to have this lifelong friendships, They met when they were
five or so, and so race wasn't a factor in
their lives. I mean, that's really the only time in
your life in America at least that you know you're
not going to be conscious of race right when you
were a child. So they weren't having these conversations. But
elementary school, you know, junior high, high school, etcetera. And
(15:26):
so it's almost in adulthood when this police shooting happens
that they're both so personally involved with that they are
forced to really have this conversation for the first time
and really delve into these hard things. And similarly, in
a case of aren't imitating life or vice versa, since
Joe and I were relatively new friends we had it
(15:48):
also drove into any of these issues, right. And so
since we were writing this book together about race, you know,
race was coming up in a lot of our conversations,
and since we never talked about it, we were having
the same kind of growing pains conversations of frustration of
why don't you get this or why is this so hard?
(16:08):
Or why don't you want to talk about this? And
speaking for my part, you know, and we had to
really push through that, and as it isn't for our characters,
it was not easy for us at times. So any
thoughts on that, yeah, And there were a lot of
hard times and tears because of everything Christine said writing
(16:29):
a book together, we essentially decided to go into business together.
That's what this is, and this is our career, and
we decided to combine them and intertwine them together. And
for me, that relationship is, you know, as sacrosanct as
as a marriage in a lot of ways, like it
has a lot of the same repercussions. And we had
to learn to communicate with each other in a way
(16:49):
where neither of us would feel slighted or insulted, and
we gave each other grace and the space to make
mistakes and to sometimes say the things that maybe they're
not right and be like they do sound stupid, but
it's how I feel. And for me, as a white woman,
what I had to do was not be defensive, and
I think that was one of the biggest things that
(17:10):
I learned that that is just that is the response
that shuts a conversation down immediately, and as long as
I could be receptive to taking feedback to hearing what
Christine had to say, there's a lot that we could
get through. But it's the defensive mechanisms, which I think
if we're honest with ourselves, they come up because we're scared,
like we're nervous, and that's why we get defensive. And
(17:33):
that's why Christina and I want to be really honest
about how this went for the two of us, and
it's hard. I'm scared to even admit how scared I was. Right,
I'm like, oh my god, now I'm gonna be canceled
for being afraid of being canceled. But I want to
because I want to start these conversations that I think
we all have to have. And at the end of
the day, Christina and I, I think I'm gonna speak
for her, but we're way better friends now than we were.
(17:56):
We're in a great place. We just started working on
our second book together. But we had to get really
comfortable with being uncomfortable and going to places that were hard. Yeah,
I think that's important to remember in anything. I was
hanging out with some friends yesterday and they were just
talking about the positives and negatives of life, and it's
making me think of the positives and negatives of relationships.
(18:17):
Of like, a battery doesn't work if it's just too
positives all the time, or it's it's neutral. Battery doesn't
work if it's too negatives all the time. You have
to have the good and the bad and then you
grow from it and that's what gives you the experience.
So I don't know, just encouragement too for anyone listening
if they may maybe need to reach out to a
(18:38):
friend that they have had a falling out with or
something they couldn't see eye to eye. And I mean
you you set out to write a book that's already
highly emotional and can challenge you in different ways. It's
not like y'all are like, oh, let's get together and
write a you know, a love story. I mean y'all
are kind of hitting things head on, and that's actually
what motivated us to keep going. To be honest, right,
(19:01):
we've really felt mission oriented about this book. I think
it would have been a lot easier had we not
been so invested in the story that we were telling
to give up or walk away or you know, have
a book that wasn't the result of our you know,
pouring all of our blood, sweat and tears into but
the whole time, we felt like this book could be important,
(19:23):
that could really help people. And I think, you know,
we've been talking a lot about how the book hopefully
we'll be able to spark conversations and help people get
over their fears and so forth. We were writing this
book for a vast audience, which means both black readers
and white readers, and one thing that was really important
(19:44):
to me is to see the range of black experience, uh,
you know, presented on the page. And we still, though
publishing is getting better at different kind of viewpoints and
voices and experiences, it's still very rare to see a
certain type of black heroine star in a commercial novel
or women's fiction. And so regardless of you know, even
(20:05):
that racial component of what they need to do and
discuss and confront and what that will mean for our characters.
I think Riley um as our co lead, you know,
represents the kind of strong, complicated flowide not stereotypical, not
relying on tropes. You know kind of character black woman
(20:26):
that you know, I certainly have always craved to see
on the page, and I know that there are a
lot of readers out there who created to see a
character like that on the page and an experience of
that character living in America today reflected back to them. Now,
I'm picturing this is like a TV show, So I
feel like it needs to get picked up somewhere And
(20:47):
have y'all thought of if it were to develop into
something like that and there was a We Are Not
Like Them show on I don't know Amazon or something,
who would play the two lead characters. Yeah, we have
had a lot of conversations and we just started talks
with figuring out what it looks like to turn it
into a TV show or a movie. And for Christine
(21:09):
and I, we both we want to make sure we
find partners that love this material and what we're trying
to do as much as we do, and we want
to make sure that we have a diverse partnership. You know,
we want a lot of black women at the helm
of whatever we're doing with this TV show, because, as
we well know, that is not always the case. Christine,
do you should we should we say who who are
(21:30):
our dream jen and Riley's are? I feel like it
keeps changing, but sure, maybe maybe they'll hear it. I
don't know. I've been very into Jennel Money as Riley,
Like I just I mean, I think about it. I
had a dream until Christine that Jenelle Money was Riley
and now I just can't get it out of my head.
(21:50):
So perfect. And then what about the other character? From
a very beginning, we were actually both kind of into
Christen Bell. Yes, she's so relatable and funny but could
also do serious very well. And she's like our thing
with our our white character Joe. It's like you're pissed
at her for a lot of the book, Like she
says a lot of a lot of ridiculous stuff and
(22:12):
she's kind of annoying, but like she's also a good
freaking friend, and like she's loyal and she would die
for your friendship. And I feel like Kristen is just
so relatable and you want to be her friend that
she could bring so much to that role. Oh yeah,
I mean I could see both of those roles them perfectly.
I'm tuning in already. This needs to happen. Kristen, if
(22:32):
you're jo jo that we're starting with Amy, Yes, yeah,
we'll do book Club first and then it'll will turn
into a series or, like you said, even a movie.
I don't know why my brain is stuck in series
mode right now, because I'm really into The Morning Show
and Ted Lasso, and so I'm having to wait every
(22:53):
Friday for a new episode to drop. That it does
make me look forward to I mean, I'm already looking
forward to Friday's but I mean I'm looking forward week
to week. But I don't know. Do you all like
to binge things like all at once and have them
all out or do you do you like the week
to week now? I like to bene, and I get
angry when things are weak to meet. I'm like, we've
established a new precedent that all shows need to be
(23:14):
available immediately, and so people who stray from that, like,
I need it all now. So sometimes I'll save them
up so I can recreate my own bene right like,
let five or six accumulate over five weeks. I missed
the old days, and miss the old days where we
had to wait and think about a show, and it
(23:35):
gave us time for all of us to talk about
an episode and to let something marinate and sink in
because now everyone is binging something different at different times
and we have no common conversation. That's fair. I mean, yeah,
that's true. And there are studies that are now coming
out talking about how binging is, like, I don't know,
bad for us or something that we're just sitting there
(23:55):
like in our brain is processing too much at once
and then we walk away and we're like, what did
we even just watch? And then we're just numbing out
a lot of us. I mean, given the last year
and have two, we're looking for different ways to numeb
out and we've definitely done that with the ability to binge.
Are y'all watching The Morning Shott? Yes? I just started
yesterday season two. Actually I love it. I have not
started season T yet. I was gonna start tonight, but
(24:17):
I'm just I'm deep into ted Lasso land Man, I
can't stop plar hot take. I do not like Ted
Lasso and the only Druson in America. I know, I've tried,
and I'm like, I just maybe it's too heartwarming for me.
I I just I don't get dark soul pursuing. I
really must everybody wants to be friends with Ted laughter,
(24:39):
but not Christine. Well, I want to circle back to
your book and and it being about social justice, and yeah,
any concern learn about the cancel culture. Have y'all had
(25:01):
any type of pushback or any reviews or something like
you weren't expecting or criticism or even constructive criticism for
that matter, not yet in terms of the book being
on sale, I mean, we were really nervous about it
for lots of different reasons. I think part of that
is when you try to write for a lot of
different audiences, right the widest possible audience, then they're going
(25:26):
to be people who disagree or you know, don't see
themselves in an audience that would have you and are
writing about something that we went into it with clear eye,
that is a hot button quote unquote issue. So we
we have prepared ourselves and were prepared. I think this
surprise for us in the best possible way, is that
there's so much positivity around our early reads, um, you know,
(25:50):
both in the media and good reads, and we really
haven't had a lot of controversy or people finding the
material polarizing in any way or problematic. And I think
part of that is a testament to how hard we
worked to really make this such a nuanced, balanced, character
(26:13):
driven story that is not a morality tale. It's not
something it's a lecture in three hundred pages sort of thing. Um.
And I think people are responding im only to the storytelling, right,
if you tell somebody a good story, then they'll come
along for the ride. And that's just very different than
(26:34):
writing an off ed, which is not what this was
and not our intention. Yeah. I have a lot of
friends who are cops, frankly, who are white cops. And
you know, we had someone rita draft early on and
their opinion was, who cares what the police think of
this book? Who cares? Who cares if you piss off
all of the white police officers and police wives and
(26:57):
my guide care. We need to show the humanity behind
all of our characters, and we can't just create this
caricature of a villainous police officer and his wife. And
that's why we spent so much time talking to police
officers and their wives and making sure that we tried
to like really nail it when it came to their
(27:17):
characters and their motivations and how they got into what
they're into now. And Christine and I had this one
conversation once and I'll never forget it. We're talking about,
you know, my my grave fear of being canceled, and
Christine's like, I just I think as a black woman,
I'm not afraid of that, and as a white I
feel like you're more afraid of that as a white woman.
(27:37):
As true I am, but so far, I think because
we have worked so hard at these characters, we haven't
gotten negative feedback. We're ready for it if it comes.
I have a lot of her She's milk chocolate stored up,
and I'm ready to inhale it. But I also Christine
(27:57):
is that she reads comments and reviews, and I've written
enough things that live on the internet now that I
don't read them anymore. So that is the difference between
I asked Christine to just read me the nice ones,
and luckily there are a lot of them, so that
does feel good. And I think we also, as much
as we wanted to tell a balanced story in terms
of obviously not painting any cop in this book, or Kevin,
(28:20):
who is one of our main characters as a one
dimensional villainous person, because that's easy to do right to
like whitewash cops to be one thing. But I think
the flip side to that also is that we see
so many headlines and there's about police shootings, and we
have so many names in our heads of you know,
unarmed black men who have been shot, and these headlines
come and go, and so in that same way, we
(28:42):
didn't want that to be also a nameless, faceless massive victims,
right that we just you know, sort of collectively lumped together.
And though our victim in this book is obviously fictional,
we wanted to provide a lot of humanity in terms
of this character and his family and what is happening
behind the scenes and the you know, terrible grief and
(29:04):
tragedy um that they are feeling as well, right, And
so that you see the real personal dimension in all
of the angles of this situation, and in that way,
you empathize with all of the angles in this situation.
And in a way, it was just what Joe was
talking about why we chose fiction. I think it's just
(29:27):
you can connect the story and all these people in
a way that you can't reading a newspaper article that
might come or go, or watching a sixty second piece
on the evening news, right, like, this is allowing you
a different and deeper way into a story. You know,
tragically we hear over and over and over end, and
this is a different way to look at that. That
(29:48):
same headline, Well, I'm super thankful that y'all came together
and this is now out in the world. It's it
came out October five, so it's been like a couple
of days which I'll be linking the book in my
show notes so people can get it, and then I'll
be thinking about how I can gather a little book
(30:09):
club situation around it, because again I'm I'm excited to
read it and I know that a lot of my
listeners will be. And then we'll arrange a time to
get back on with you all. So thank you for
putting this story into the world. And I would love
to hear from y'all. Something I often do with guests
is I like to hear four things that and they're
(30:30):
thankful for. Since there's two of you, though, you'll get
to split it up. So Christine, two things that you're
thankful for today, big or small, and then Joe, I'll
have you do the same as the course is my
relationship with Joe. We've been doing so much media and
interviews like this in podcast over the last few days,
and it's really the same way that you're grateful for
your coworkers or you know, and your friends. I feel
(30:52):
like this is rolled up into one. We get to
spend a lot of time together. Just the beginning, we're
gonna be spending a lot more time together, um And
I feel like it's sometimes I'll be sitting interviews with
Joe and even though you know, we get a lot
of the same questions and we're talking about the same things,
like something she said surprises me, or you know, I
feel like I learned something about her that I didn't
know before in the three years so we've been having
(31:15):
these conversations. So I think the idea that we can
always get closely to our friends and and learn more
about them and spend time with them, especially coming off
of the pandemic, is something that I don't want to
take for granted. And I'm always grateful for. Uh. And
the second thing that I'm grateful for It's gonna sound
really superficial, I know, but getting new clothes I just
(31:38):
I like during the pandemic, I hadn't bought me thing,
and then I looked in my worder and I hated
everything I owned. And there is something about right just
having something that knew that makes you feel good, that
you get that little endorphin bumped from buying something. Um
And I don't know, it's just been kind of fun
to feel like that's a sign of more mole life again,
(32:00):
just a new you know, cute short. Yeah, well, so
you just celebrated putting out a book so you can
buy yourself a cute short. I mean, I don't think
that's superficial at all. And I'm grateful for Botox right now. Man,
So but I did two other things botox, and I
am grateful actually to our my Heart podcast radio family
(32:22):
for putting Amy and I together, and they also create
all of my podcasts. And it's kind of a bigger
thing that I'm just grateful for all the people that
I've worked with who are helping us promote this book,
and like the incredible teams that we have behind us
who are supporting us in a thousand different ways. And
it takes some village to put a book into the world.
And Christine and I have this really awesome village that
(32:43):
I'm so so grateful for. And in addition to my
village comment, and I don't think that working mothers say
this enough. I'm very grateful to have great childcare. I
have two babies. I have a four year old and
a two year old, and yet I was able to
write this book and now I'm able to go on
book tour because I have a really wonderful, wonderful caregiver
(33:05):
who takes care of my kids when I'm a working mom.
So we just need to celebrate those women that are
that are helping us behind the scenes more often. I
feel like sometimes is working women though, and we get
asked how, especially if you're doing several different things as
you are, even with like the podcast and the writing
and the like, you know, how do you do it all?
And it's like, well, okay, I know you've probably heard
(33:28):
this four but not a lot of men get asked
that question. They don't. They don't get asked that. So
then it's like, well, okay, but yeah, we want to
shout out that, oh it's because we, you know, have
awesome people that help us with our kids or do whatever.
But then their shame that comes from others that are like, oh,
so now you have you know, someone watching your kids
(33:49):
and you're not, and then it's just so then you just,
you know, speaking of being scared to speak, you just
kind of like, don't bring it up. So I'm thankful
that your your record ignizing those that are in your
life that helping give you that opportunity to go do that,
because at the same time, it's a job for them too.
And then it's a whole ecosystem that's you know, surviving
(34:11):
because everybody's working together. But there's just oh, I just
you know, you can't win, and it's like you're supposed
to do it all. But then if you say you
have help, then you've got shamed for having help, and
then you're like, I can't win. Yes, yes, my husband
has never once stotten asked that you've never once stotten
asked how do you do? He was gone all we
got a business trip, and no one was like, how
(34:32):
did you get to leave all week for your business trip?
Whereas I am gone for four days next week for
our book tour. And everyone's like, oh my god, what's
going to happen to your children? And I'm like, well,
their dad and their babysitter and my mother and all
of the people that it takes to raise freaking kids. Well,
(34:52):
I think that's what's interesting about our book, Do Not
To Meet Back. But we talked so much about this
book being the context of race, and sure, you know
that comes up a lot, and that is kind of
the crisis point for these two friends, but it's a
regular friendship where they're dealing. You know, Jen's pregnant and
Riley is dating, and you know there's other aspects of
friendship and womanhood that come up. So I think that
(35:15):
to your point when you read the book, there are
other things to talk about about working, motherhood and being
career driven and you know Riley super ambitious and what
that means and what that cost her, and you know
the choices that we make and how they affect our relationships,
and none of that has anything to do with race.
That is a very universal. My favorite thing we talk
(35:37):
about is how Jen is pregnant and Riley is not,
and she's not necessarious relationship, and how she's worried she's
going to be left behind when Jen becomes a mother
and has this baby, and how Jen also like desperately
wants Riley to have this thing that Riley doesn't know
if she wants it. It's so universal. We've all been there,
we've all been these women, and yeah, that has nothing
(35:58):
to do with race. Yeah, I mean, I think that
the book is going to achieve the goal with it
of being a conversation starter for people. And I saw
that one of your reviews of the book said something
along the lines of, like, you're gonna be thinking about
this book well after you're done with it or you've
turned the last page. And I you know, you gotta
love a good novel that's gonna be thought provoking and
(36:21):
allow for ongoing conversation, even with yourself, Like I think
ongoing conversation with friends, sure, but like you can continue
whatever you've read with yourself and your inner dialogue and
challenging yourself to take a look at your friendships and
how you're handling certain things in life. So I'm here
for it. I'm I'm gonna gather my troops. We'll do
(36:43):
a little book club. Um. So again, the book is
We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Joe Piazza.
Looking yes, okay, So congratulations, Just super thankful to have
had y'all on today for this important conversation, and it
looks like I'll be seeing you all again sometime soon.
(37:03):
We love it, love being here today to come back.
We're gonna just come on once a week. Awesome. I'll
take it. Thank you, Amy,
Okay, little food for you sol life. Oh it's pretty Bay,
It's pretty beautiful. Thanks, beautiful laughs, A little moth kicking
(00:30):
four Happy Thursday. For today's episode, I am joined by
Christine Pride and Joe Piazza and super excited about the
novel that you both wrote and talking about the importance
of this novel here on the podcast today. So the
book is called We Are Not Like Them? And why
(00:53):
don't y'all just break down what inspired y'all to write
this book together and um, the special meaning behind it
and how it's going to be a great even conversation
starters for other friends that might be reading it together.
Oh my gosh, yeah, I mean, we want more than
anything for this book to start great conversations. Christine was
(01:13):
my This is Joe Hi, by the way, I always
forget it's harder in audio, and Christine was my editor
on my last novel, and we became fast friends. And
another thing that's hard to tell in audio is that
I'm a white woman and Christine as a black woman,
and we decided to write this story together about two
lifelong friends, a white woman and black woman who really
(01:36):
have to reckon with race in their relationship. For the
very first time in their adult lives as a partnership,
so that we could each bring our different perspectives on
race to the table. But we wanted to put it
in a novel. We wanted to put it in fiction,
in a story that at its core is about friendship,
because we want to make it easy and accessible for friends,
(01:58):
for book clubs, for anyone to start what we think
is a very important conversation about race in America today. Well,
I want to touch on four things specifically with you
all today, And the first thing would be why is
it so hard to talk about race? And then I
want to get into yeah, interracial friendships and why it's
(02:18):
so hard to make them, and then also writing a
book together as two friends and yeah, I know there's
even a story of how it, you know, almost blew
up your friendship. And then the fourth thing being writing
a book about social justice and cancel culture, because that
is something that's very real that everyone kind of has
(02:38):
to think about in this day and age. So let's
start with the why is it so hard to talk
about race? Actually, this is something it's Christine here. Uh,
this is something that surprised me as a black woman
because I I have always and I feel really fortunate
to have had a lot of interracial friendships from a
young age. I mean, I think a lot of it
is just by virtue where I grew up in suburban
(02:59):
mary and um, and so I have always been having
these conversations about race. And you know, as a black
person in America, you can't avoid talking or thinking about race,
you know, the family dinner table. It's something that I've
been doing since I could actually talk, and before that
I was listening and absorbing, you know, And so it's
always been obviously a part of the fabric of my life.
(03:22):
And then when Joe and I were working on this
novel together and really starting to get into these conversations,
it really became clear to me and I I really, frankly,
just being transparent here, didn't quite understand before how scared
white people are to talk about race. And there's a
lot of reasons for that. I think some people are
just afraid to say the wrong thing or to be misinterpreted,
(03:43):
or that it just feels so uncomfortable to them that
they wanted to avoid it. And then there, of course
the people who just don't care to talk about race,
right that just feel like, this doesn't matter, and this
is not something that affects my life, and I don't
need to do that, So why would I kind of
covers the gambit and so learning that and really really
having that sink in and really having that come up,
(04:05):
and you know, even Joe and I's conversations, it made
the book that much more even mission oriented for me
almost in terms of this book being actual being a
way for people to talk about race, um that feels
both relatable but also at a little bit of a distance. Right,
You're not necessarily talking about your own experiences, which hopefully
(04:28):
you get there and it's harder to do. But this
is a way for you to talk about race via
our characters, and that can be a good baby step
into these conversations for a lot of people who are
just now having them for the first time. Yeah, so,
I mean, these are fictional characters, But how did y'all
design them intentionally? Like I guess, or maybe give an
(04:49):
example of something that characters encounter or go through that
might spark up a conversation in a book club or
between two friends that are reading it, Like, how would
it ignite that conver station about race? Yeah? Absolutely, I
mean when we were writing, we are not like them.
We both completely wrote each character. We both wrote the
black character and the white character together. Everyone thinks, oh
(05:10):
my god, the white lady must have written the white
character and the black lady must have written the black character.
That's not the case. But we did bring our own
conversations to the fiction. And like Christine said, she as
a black woman, essentially you know, has a PhD in race.
She's been talking about this her whole life. And yet
I came to this and as very educated woman, i'd
(05:31):
call myself like, you know, like I have a big
circle of friends, but I don't have any close black
women friends or black men friends. And so no, I
was not comfortable talking about the ins and outs of
race beyond the superficial. And I want to be really
honest about that, because I think a lot of people
can relate to it. Like we want to say that
we that we feel comfortable, but a lot of people don't.
(05:52):
And so we had to have a conversation where I said, Christine,
I'm like, why don't I feel comfortable talking about some
aspects of race or so justice or the recent police
shootings of black men, and a lot of it is
because I'm afraid I'm afraid of saying the wrong thing.
I'm afraid of sounding stupid. Um, I'm afraid of sounding
ignorant or at the worst, being offensive when I didn't
(06:14):
mean to be offensive, and you brought up cancel culture,
and of course I am terrified of saying the wrong thing.
And so we put that directly on the page in
our book where our white character says to our black character,
I don't talk about race with you because I don't
know what I should be saying. And she's vulnerable and
she's honest and she's scared, and it's not necessarily okay.
(06:38):
But I think that a lot of white readers will
see themselves in our white character gen when she says
I'm afraid I'm afraid of sounding stupid or saying the
wrong thing, and then with her they'll be able to
move to the next stage, which is, okay, how do
we talk about it now. I love that it's fiction,
but it helps gives us a guide of how to
actually engage in this type of conversation, because I mean I,
(07:02):
as a white woman a percent didn't start having these
conversations until probably about a year and a half ago
because of stuff that was in the news and prompted
me to do so and made me take a real
hard look at my relationships in my life and how
I was just going about kind of not addressing things
because they weren't right in front of me. But then
(07:23):
at the same time, I was like, oh, wait a second,
I'm raising two black children, so I need to start
paying attention, and I need to start making some shifts,
and I need to start having real conversations, especially with
some of my friends. Fortunately, I felt I could be
super open with and comfortable and inviting them on the
podcast and us we recorded it out so that other
(07:43):
people could hear and maybe here what we were doing
and and mirror it. But still, it's even after you
put in the work and you've read some books and
you're having the tough conversations. I'm just admitting, especially for
any other white women listening right now, like it's still
scary at times, because, like you said, Joe, the number
one thing we don't want to find. So I haven't
read your book yet, but I ordered it and I
(08:05):
am super excited because I think that this will be
and maybe my listeners will want to do it too,
and we can kind of do a little mini book
club and engage and talk back and forth about it,
because we've been looking for a novel to do it
with and maybe this will be the perfect one. Oh yeah,
we would. We would love that. And if you guys
want to do a little book club, will come back
and you can talk amongst yourselves without us, but then
(08:26):
we can come answer any questions that you want for
the whole group. We did one last week with the
company Heineken, and the conversations that came out of it
were amazing. Christina and I both cried because we had
men that read the book, men who were not our
target audience, a white man and a black man, and
they were just so open about race in ways that
(08:48):
we never expected. It was. I thought it was the
coolest thing that we've done so far. Okay, I'll take
you up on it. I think this sounds so fun,
and we need to do a little book club and
do a virtual meeting or hang time, and I think
having y'all there would be so fun. So go back
(09:15):
to how y'all's friendships started, and you know what that
even looked like. Because some people that have been looking
to diversify their relationships. They look around, They're like, well,
this is harder than I thought. And then they wanted
to be genuine too, Like you want you don't want
to force things, but sometimes you have to step outside
of your bubble to meet people. So how did it
(09:36):
happen for y'all? Well, Joe and I actually met working together.
I was her editor at Simon and Schuster, where I
was still working full time as a book editor. UM.
And you know, in a way, that's an unconventional way
to meet, but in a way it is representative, and
that our society is so segregated socially, meaning like the
activities that we do and where we live in schools, etcetera, etcetera,
(09:59):
that oft times work is the most diverse place we're at. Right.
Our offices are where we see the most people that
look different than we do. UM. And so Joe and
I met in that capacity and a very professional capacity. Um.
But it quickly tipped over into a friendship and that
way that when you meet somebody, there's you know, kind
(10:21):
of that meet cute spark, and we just had so
much in common and we had so much fun working together. UM.
So we worked on her novel Charlotte Walsh likes to win.
And then we did another project together that I was
publishing it Simon and Schuster. That was a tie into
the television show Marriage Vacation, which is a show set
of publishing, which is very fun um but we had
(10:41):
to do that very quickly. That book had a four
to five week deadline, and so that meant we were
really collaborating together, less like writer editor and more like
co writers, you know, in a in a Google doc.
And that just gave us another sense of how fun
it would be to work together and how well we
worked together. So I had had this idea kicking around
(11:03):
about an in a racial friendship that's affected by a
police shooting, and the more we talked about it, the
more it made sense for us to write it together,
bringing both of our different perspectives and experiences to the table,
and that that would be a richer, better book and
a more unique opportunity than if each of us wrote
(11:25):
the book separately. And part of that is because you know,
Joe is privy to conversations that I'm not privy to
as a black woman, right like she is hearing what
other white people are saying, and that people would not
necessarily ever, say in front of me and vice versa. Right,
I'm in all black spaces a lot where we have
conversations amongst all black people, you know, that are very
(11:48):
different than the conversations that you have in quote unquote,
we call it mixed company. And so by bringing both
those perspectives to the table, right, we're allowing the reader
to I mean eavesdrop almost if you will, right on
both sides of things and see what the characters saying
here in separate spaces and then what they say to
(12:10):
each other. Uh. And that is where the uh, you know,
interesting dynamics lie. And that is where there's a lot
to learn, and that is where when we have conversations,
there are more open and honest in that arena right
where where people are coming together, that's where the progress
is made. No, I love that. You know you mentioned
the shooting, but y'all interviewed real life people in different
(12:33):
professions that have been through something like that and incorporated
their stories into the book. What did that look like?
We did? We did? And you know, I want to
figure out on what Christine just said too, and when
you just said to me, as a white woman who
does want to diversify my social circles. It isn't easy,
and I joke all the time, but there is some
seriousness in this, and like, what am I supposed to do?
(12:54):
Like walk up to the one black woman in my
yoga class from my neighborhood and be like, would you
like to the Bachelor with me? To make a new
friend of any race? As hard as a grown up,
I think, like I just I haven't expanded my social
circle really except for Christine in years. So I think
that we do have to give people grace, and our
(13:15):
biggest tip is step outside your comfort zone, like go
to that town hall meeting that you might not normally
go to on school zoning, or go to a book
reading by a black author that you might not normally
have on your t V red list, to put yourself
in a place where you might be the minority, and
then it may be easier for you to start up
some of these conversations. But yes to the other question,
(13:36):
I'm a reporter. I've been a reporter for twenty years,
so I report all of my fiction the same way
that I would a New York Times or wallt Shaet
Journal story. And Christina and I did so many interviews
with police officers, with police officers, wives, with shooting victims,
with the mothers of shooting victims, all because we wanted
our characters to be real human beings. None of this
(13:59):
is fuck and white. All of these issues live in
a world of gray that the media is terrible conveying
and also terrible like giving us a place for common ground.
We didn't want anyone to be a clear cut villain
in this book. We wanted everyone to be a fully formed,
fully flawed human being that has good and bad and
(14:22):
absolutely everything in between. What happened with y'all's friendship in
the making of this book, I just saw like a
teaser that there was some sort of a blow up,
And you know, I think that anybody listening right now too,
they might not be writing a book together, but they
may work with a friend and there may be certain
things that come up, So you know, just sharing whatever
(14:42):
happened with y'all might help someone. Well, really honest about that.
I mean, part of it is that writing a book
is just really hard to do period um, and then
writing a book with somebody else's really hard to do.
Their creative differences, they were logistical challenges, I mean, there's
a big learning curve for us um to dive into
this process. But we also always say that Riley and Jin,
(15:04):
our characters were very young when they met, right so
to have this lifelong friendships, They met when they were
five or so, and so race wasn't a factor in
their lives. I mean, that's really the only time in
your life in America at least that you know you're
not going to be conscious of race right when you
were a child. So they weren't having these conversations. But
elementary school, you know, junior high, high school, etcetera. And
(15:26):
so it's almost in adulthood when this police shooting happens
that they're both so personally involved with that they are
forced to really have this conversation for the first time
and really delve into these hard things. And similarly, in
a case of aren't imitating life or vice versa, since
Joe and I were relatively new friends we had it
(15:48):
also drove into any of these issues, right. And so
since we were writing this book together about race, you know,
race was coming up in a lot of our conversations,
and since we never talked about it, we were having
the same kind of growing pains conversations of frustration of
why don't you get this or why is this so hard?
(16:08):
Or why don't you want to talk about this? And
speaking for my part, you know, and we had to
really push through that, and as it isn't for our characters,
it was not easy for us at times. So any
thoughts on that, yeah, And there were a lot of
hard times and tears because of everything Christine said writing
(16:29):
a book together, we essentially decided to go into business together.
That's what this is, and this is our career, and
we decided to combine them and intertwine them together. And
for me, that relationship is, you know, as sacrosanct as
as a marriage in a lot of ways, like it
has a lot of the same repercussions. And we had
to learn to communicate with each other in a way
(16:49):
where neither of us would feel slighted or insulted, and
we gave each other grace and the space to make
mistakes and to sometimes say the things that maybe they're
not right and be like they do sound stupid, but
it's how I feel. And for me, as a white woman,
what I had to do was not be defensive, and
I think that was one of the biggest things that
(17:10):
I learned that that is just that is the response
that shuts a conversation down immediately, and as long as
I could be receptive to taking feedback to hearing what
Christine had to say, there's a lot that we could
get through. But it's the defensive mechanisms, which I think
if we're honest with ourselves, they come up because we're scared,
like we're nervous, and that's why we get defensive. And
(17:33):
that's why Christina and I want to be really honest
about how this went for the two of us, and
it's hard. I'm scared to even admit how scared I was. Right,
I'm like, oh my god, now I'm gonna be canceled
for being afraid of being canceled. But I want to
because I want to start these conversations that I think
we all have to have. And at the end of
the day, Christina and I, I think I'm gonna speak
for her, but we're way better friends now than we were.
(17:56):
We're in a great place. We just started working on
our second book together. But we had to get really
comfortable with being uncomfortable and going to places that were hard. Yeah,
I think that's important to remember in anything. I was
hanging out with some friends yesterday and they were just
talking about the positives and negatives of life, and it's
making me think of the positives and negatives of relationships.
(18:17):
Of like, a battery doesn't work if it's just too
positives all the time, or it's it's neutral. Battery doesn't
work if it's too negatives all the time. You have
to have the good and the bad and then you
grow from it and that's what gives you the experience.
So I don't know, just encouragement too for anyone listening
if they may maybe need to reach out to a
(18:38):
friend that they have had a falling out with or
something they couldn't see eye to eye. And I mean
you you set out to write a book that's already
highly emotional and can challenge you in different ways. It's
not like y'all are like, oh, let's get together and
write a you know, a love story. I mean y'all
are kind of hitting things head on, and that's actually
what motivated us to keep going. To be honest, right,
(19:01):
we've really felt mission oriented about this book. I think
it would have been a lot easier had we not
been so invested in the story that we were telling
to give up or walk away or you know, have
a book that wasn't the result of our you know,
pouring all of our blood, sweat and tears into but
the whole time, we felt like this book could be important,
(19:23):
that could really help people. And I think, you know,
we've been talking a lot about how the book hopefully
we'll be able to spark conversations and help people get
over their fears and so forth. We were writing this
book for a vast audience, which means both black readers
and white readers, and one thing that was really important
(19:44):
to me is to see the range of black experience, uh,
you know, presented on the page. And we still, though
publishing is getting better at different kind of viewpoints and
voices and experiences, it's still very rare to see a
certain type of black heroine star in a commercial novel
or women's fiction. And so regardless of you know, even
(20:05):
that racial component of what they need to do and
discuss and confront and what that will mean for our characters.
I think Riley um as our co lead, you know,
represents the kind of strong, complicated flowide not stereotypical, not
relying on tropes. You know kind of character black woman
(20:26):
that you know, I certainly have always craved to see
on the page, and I know that there are a
lot of readers out there who created to see a
character like that on the page and an experience of
that character living in America today reflected back to them. Now,
I'm picturing this is like a TV show, So I
feel like it needs to get picked up somewhere And
(20:47):
have y'all thought of if it were to develop into
something like that and there was a We Are Not
Like Them show on I don't know Amazon or something,
who would play the two lead characters. Yeah, we have
had a lot of conversations and we just started talks
with figuring out what it looks like to turn it
into a TV show or a movie. And for Christine
(21:09):
and I, we both we want to make sure we
find partners that love this material and what we're trying
to do as much as we do, and we want
to make sure that we have a diverse partnership. You know,
we want a lot of black women at the helm
of whatever we're doing with this TV show, because, as
we well know, that is not always the case. Christine,
do you should we should we say who who are
(21:30):
our dream jen and Riley's are? I feel like it
keeps changing, but sure, maybe maybe they'll hear it. I
don't know. I've been very into Jennel Money as Riley,
Like I just I mean, I think about it. I
had a dream until Christine that Jenelle Money was Riley
and now I just can't get it out of my head.
(21:50):
So perfect. And then what about the other character? From
a very beginning, we were actually both kind of into
Christen Bell. Yes, she's so relatable and funny but could
also do serious very well. And she's like our thing
with our our white character Joe. It's like you're pissed
at her for a lot of the book, Like she
says a lot of a lot of ridiculous stuff and
(22:12):
she's kind of annoying, but like she's also a good
freaking friend, and like she's loyal and she would die
for your friendship. And I feel like Kristen is just
so relatable and you want to be her friend that
she could bring so much to that role. Oh yeah,
I mean I could see both of those roles them perfectly.
I'm tuning in already. This needs to happen. Kristen, if
(22:32):
you're jo jo that we're starting with Amy, Yes, yeah,
we'll do book Club first and then it'll will turn
into a series or, like you said, even a movie.
I don't know why my brain is stuck in series
mode right now, because I'm really into The Morning Show
and Ted Lasso, and so I'm having to wait every
(22:53):
Friday for a new episode to drop. That it does
make me look forward to I mean, I'm already looking
forward to Friday's but I mean I'm looking forward week
to week. But I don't know. Do you all like
to binge things like all at once and have them
all out or do you do you like the week
to week now? I like to bene, and I get
angry when things are weak to meet. I'm like, we've
established a new precedent that all shows need to be
(23:14):
available immediately, and so people who stray from that, like,
I need it all now. So sometimes I'll save them
up so I can recreate my own bene right like,
let five or six accumulate over five weeks. I missed
the old days, and miss the old days where we
had to wait and think about a show, and it
(23:35):
gave us time for all of us to talk about
an episode and to let something marinate and sink in
because now everyone is binging something different at different times
and we have no common conversation. That's fair. I mean, yeah,
that's true. And there are studies that are now coming
out talking about how binging is, like, I don't know,
bad for us or something that we're just sitting there
(23:55):
like in our brain is processing too much at once
and then we walk away and we're like, what did
we even just watch? And then we're just numbing out
a lot of us. I mean, given the last year
and have two, we're looking for different ways to numeb
out and we've definitely done that with the ability to binge.
Are y'all watching The Morning Shott? Yes? I just started
yesterday season two. Actually I love it. I have not
started season T yet. I was gonna start tonight, but
(24:17):
I'm just I'm deep into ted Lasso land Man, I
can't stop plar hot take. I do not like Ted
Lasso and the only Druson in America. I know, I've tried,
and I'm like, I just maybe it's too heartwarming for me.
I I just I don't get dark soul pursuing. I
really must everybody wants to be friends with Ted laughter,
(24:39):
but not Christine. Well, I want to circle back to
your book and and it being about social justice, and yeah,
any concern learn about the cancel culture. Have y'all had
(25:01):
any type of pushback or any reviews or something like
you weren't expecting or criticism or even constructive criticism for
that matter, not yet in terms of the book being
on sale, I mean, we were really nervous about it
for lots of different reasons. I think part of that
is when you try to write for a lot of
different audiences, right the widest possible audience, then they're going
(25:26):
to be people who disagree or you know, don't see
themselves in an audience that would have you and are
writing about something that we went into it with clear eye,
that is a hot button quote unquote issue. So we
we have prepared ourselves and were prepared. I think this
surprise for us in the best possible way, is that
there's so much positivity around our early reads, um, you know,
(25:50):
both in the media and good reads, and we really
haven't had a lot of controversy or people finding the
material polarizing in any way or problematic. And I think
part of that is a testament to how hard we
worked to really make this such a nuanced, balanced, character
(26:13):
driven story that is not a morality tale. It's not
something it's a lecture in three hundred pages sort of thing. Um.
And I think people are responding im only to the storytelling, right,
if you tell somebody a good story, then they'll come
along for the ride. And that's just very different than
(26:34):
writing an off ed, which is not what this was
and not our intention. Yeah. I have a lot of
friends who are cops, frankly, who are white cops. And
you know, we had someone rita draft early on and
their opinion was, who cares what the police think of
this book? Who cares? Who cares if you piss off
all of the white police officers and police wives and
(26:57):
my guide care. We need to show the humanity behind
all of our characters, and we can't just create this
caricature of a villainous police officer and his wife. And
that's why we spent so much time talking to police
officers and their wives and making sure that we tried
to like really nail it when it came to their
(27:17):
characters and their motivations and how they got into what
they're into now. And Christine and I had this one
conversation once and I'll never forget it. We're talking about,
you know, my my grave fear of being canceled, and
Christine's like, I just I think as a black woman,
I'm not afraid of that, and as a white I
feel like you're more afraid of that as a white woman.
(27:37):
As true I am, but so far, I think because
we have worked so hard at these characters, we haven't
gotten negative feedback. We're ready for it if it comes.
I have a lot of her She's milk chocolate stored up,
and I'm ready to inhale it. But I also Christine
(27:57):
is that she reads comments and reviews, and I've written
enough things that live on the internet now that I
don't read them anymore. So that is the difference between
I asked Christine to just read me the nice ones,
and luckily there are a lot of them, so that
does feel good. And I think we also, as much
as we wanted to tell a balanced story in terms
of obviously not painting any cop in this book, or Kevin,
(28:20):
who is one of our main characters as a one
dimensional villainous person, because that's easy to do right to
like whitewash cops to be one thing. But I think
the flip side to that also is that we see
so many headlines and there's about police shootings, and we
have so many names in our heads of you know,
unarmed black men who have been shot, and these headlines
come and go, and so in that same way, we
(28:42):
didn't want that to be also a nameless, faceless massive victims,
right that we just you know, sort of collectively lumped together.
And though our victim in this book is obviously fictional,
we wanted to provide a lot of humanity in terms
of this character and his family and what is happening
behind the scenes and the you know, terrible grief and
(29:04):
tragedy um that they are feeling as well, right, And
so that you see the real personal dimension in all
of the angles of this situation, and in that way,
you empathize with all of the angles in this situation.
And in a way, it was just what Joe was
talking about why we chose fiction. I think it's just
(29:27):
you can connect the story and all these people in
a way that you can't reading a newspaper article that
might come or go, or watching a sixty second piece
on the evening news, right, like, this is allowing you
a different and deeper way into a story. You know,
tragically we hear over and over and over end, and
this is a different way to look at that. That
(29:48):
same headline, Well, I'm super thankful that y'all came together
and this is now out in the world. It's it
came out October five, so it's been like a couple
of days which I'll be linking the book in my
show notes so people can get it, and then I'll
be thinking about how I can gather a little book
(30:09):
club situation around it, because again I'm I'm excited to
read it and I know that a lot of my
listeners will be. And then we'll arrange a time to
get back on with you all. So thank you for
putting this story into the world. And I would love
to hear from y'all. Something I often do with guests
is I like to hear four things that and they're
(30:30):
thankful for. Since there's two of you, though, you'll get
to split it up. So Christine, two things that you're
thankful for today, big or small, and then Joe, I'll
have you do the same as the course is my
relationship with Joe. We've been doing so much media and
interviews like this in podcast over the last few days,
and it's really the same way that you're grateful for
your coworkers or you know, and your friends. I feel
(30:52):
like this is rolled up into one. We get to
spend a lot of time together. Just the beginning, we're
gonna be spending a lot more time together, um And
I feel like it's sometimes I'll be sitting interviews with
Joe and even though you know, we get a lot
of the same questions and we're talking about the same things,
like something she said surprises me, or you know, I
feel like I learned something about her that I didn't
know before in the three years so we've been having
(31:15):
these conversations. So I think the idea that we can
always get closely to our friends and and learn more
about them and spend time with them, especially coming off
of the pandemic, is something that I don't want to
take for granted. And I'm always grateful for. Uh. And
the second thing that I'm grateful for It's gonna sound
really superficial, I know, but getting new clothes I just
(31:38):
I like during the pandemic, I hadn't bought me thing,
and then I looked in my worder and I hated
everything I owned. And there is something about right just
having something that knew that makes you feel good, that
you get that little endorphin bumped from buying something. Um
And I don't know, it's just been kind of fun
to feel like that's a sign of more mole life again,
(32:00):
just a new you know, cute short. Yeah, well, so
you just celebrated putting out a book so you can
buy yourself a cute short. I mean, I don't think
that's superficial at all. And I'm grateful for Botox right now. Man,
So but I did two other things botox, and I
am grateful actually to our my Heart podcast radio family
(32:22):
for putting Amy and I together, and they also create
all of my podcasts. And it's kind of a bigger
thing that I'm just grateful for all the people that
I've worked with who are helping us promote this book,
and like the incredible teams that we have behind us
who are supporting us in a thousand different ways. And
it takes some village to put a book into the world.
And Christine and I have this really awesome village that
(32:43):
I'm so so grateful for. And in addition to my
village comment, and I don't think that working mothers say
this enough. I'm very grateful to have great childcare. I
have two babies. I have a four year old and
a two year old, and yet I was able to
write this book and now I'm able to go on
book tour because I have a really wonderful, wonderful caregiver
(33:05):
who takes care of my kids when I'm a working mom.
So we just need to celebrate those women that are
that are helping us behind the scenes more often. I
feel like sometimes is working women though, and we get
asked how, especially if you're doing several different things as
you are, even with like the podcast and the writing
and the like, you know, how do you do it all?
And it's like, well, okay, I know you've probably heard
(33:28):
this four but not a lot of men get asked
that question. They don't. They don't get asked that. So
then it's like, well, okay, but yeah, we want to
shout out that, oh it's because we, you know, have
awesome people that help us with our kids or do whatever.
But then their shame that comes from others that are like, oh,
so now you have you know, someone watching your kids
(33:49):
and you're not, and then it's just so then you just,
you know, speaking of being scared to speak, you just
kind of like, don't bring it up. So I'm thankful
that your your record ignizing those that are in your
life that helping give you that opportunity to go do that,
because at the same time, it's a job for them too.
And then it's a whole ecosystem that's you know, surviving
(34:11):
because everybody's working together. But there's just oh, I just
you know, you can't win, and it's like you're supposed
to do it all. But then if you say you
have help, then you've got shamed for having help, and
then you're like, I can't win. Yes, yes, my husband
has never once stotten asked that you've never once stotten
asked how do you do? He was gone all we
got a business trip, and no one was like, how
(34:32):
did you get to leave all week for your business trip?
Whereas I am gone for four days next week for
our book tour. And everyone's like, oh my god, what's
going to happen to your children? And I'm like, well,
their dad and their babysitter and my mother and all
of the people that it takes to raise freaking kids. Well,
(34:52):
I think that's what's interesting about our book, Do Not
To Meet Back. But we talked so much about this
book being the context of race, and sure, you know
that comes up a lot, and that is kind of
the crisis point for these two friends, but it's a
regular friendship where they're dealing. You know, Jen's pregnant and
Riley is dating, and you know there's other aspects of
friendship and womanhood that come up. So I think that
(35:15):
to your point when you read the book, there are
other things to talk about about working, motherhood and being
career driven and you know Riley super ambitious and what
that means and what that cost her, and you know
the choices that we make and how they affect our relationships,
and none of that has anything to do with race.
That is a very universal. My favorite thing we talk
(35:37):
about is how Jen is pregnant and Riley is not,
and she's not necessarious relationship, and how she's worried she's
going to be left behind when Jen becomes a mother
and has this baby, and how Jen also like desperately
wants Riley to have this thing that Riley doesn't know
if she wants it. It's so universal. We've all been there,
we've all been these women, and yeah, that has nothing
(35:58):
to do with race. Yeah, I mean, I think that
the book is going to achieve the goal with it
of being a conversation starter for people. And I saw
that one of your reviews of the book said something
along the lines of, like, you're gonna be thinking about
this book well after you're done with it or you've
turned the last page. And I you know, you gotta
love a good novel that's gonna be thought provoking and
(36:21):
allow for ongoing conversation, even with yourself, Like I think
ongoing conversation with friends, sure, but like you can continue
whatever you've read with yourself and your inner dialogue and
challenging yourself to take a look at your friendships and
how you're handling certain things in life. So I'm here
for it. I'm I'm gonna gather my troops. We'll do
(36:43):
a little book club. Um. So again, the book is
We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Joe Piazza.
Looking yes, okay, So congratulations, Just super thankful to have
had y'all on today for this important conversation, and it
looks like I'll be seeing you all again sometime soon.
(37:03):
We love it, love being here today to come back.
We're gonna just come on once a week. Awesome. I'll
take it. Thank you, Amy,
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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