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Speaker 1: Hi, Kate, this is zero. How are you doing today?

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Speaker 2: I'm doing well.

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Speaker 1: How are you excited to share a conversation with you?

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Because I cannot wait to start having conversations with other

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people about this book, and I said, I won't do

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it until I have a conversation with you.

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Speaker 2: Excellent.

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Speaker 1: This story is so amazing in the way of being

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that conversation starter, because I think that we know a

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lot of Rachel's and Allison's.

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Speaker 2: I hope, so, I really really hope.

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Speaker 3: So you know that that's one of the things when

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you start writing, you think, Okay, I think this is universal.

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I hope this is universal. I hope people will understand,

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and you just cross your fingers.

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Speaker 1: Well, you know what, I think what you what makes

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it universal for you is the fact that you cover

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so many different classes, the upper class, middle and everybody

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else in between. To get into that area. How are

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you so relatable with it?

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Speaker 3: I mean, I think in my own life, I've had

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I've just had experience with all of it. You know,

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my my my family was, my relatives are all very

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working class. My parents up working class. My father's a writer,

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and he found some he found some success.

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Speaker 2: And then you know, as as I.

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Speaker 3: Got older, I sort of watched my own class change

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and that felt, I mean, nothing to the level of Alison. Obviously,

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I mean, her family is incredibly wealthy, but I did

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feel that sort of that sort of shift of like, Okay, well,

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I remember growing up in a tiny apartment in New Haven,

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but I also remember living in a nice house in Maine,

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and so I've had both experiences, and I wanted to

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show both experiences.

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Speaker 1: You know, you say that Allison comes from a lot

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of money, But now I'm now I sit here and

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I go, well, why was Rachel so embarrassed to call

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her a friend? Why did she why did she feel

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like she would be so uncool?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's I mean, that's a funny thing, you know.

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And I wonder what other manors will think about that

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element of the story, because I always felt that way

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growing up, that it was, particularly in Central Maine, there

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was this real kind of I compare it to sort

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of a Goldilocks thing. You couldn't you couldn't be too

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poor and you couldn't be too rich.

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Speaker 2: You had to sort of be just right in the middle.

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Speaker 3: And so Rachel, you know, Rachel kind of was you know,

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she I think She describes herself as sort of being

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on the cusp of being too poor. And then there

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are these kids who live in this neighborhood, neighborhood called

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Allerton Heights, that that's kind of the cool neighborhood, and

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that is where Alison lives. But she's sort of like

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far and away just her family is. Her family is

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so wealthy that it's hard for the other kids to

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like her because I think jealousy takes.

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Speaker 1: Over see, and that's another relatable right there, because I

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think every town has this. I mean, I grew up

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in Billings, Montana. We live south of the tracks. Uh oh.

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And then those that lived up in Heights. You know,

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it's like saying, I don't want to relate with you.

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I have nothing to do with you people up there

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in the heights.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And it becomes turfy really quickly.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it sure does. It sure does. So Now one thing,

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as that writer, I've got to ask you this question.

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The book takes place eight years earlier. I'm one of

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those people that believes that we are born to rewrite

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our lives, and so as you were writing this story,

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you had the power to rewrite those eight years.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, this is you know, I mean, this

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is my I mean, my own experience. I would love

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it if people thought that I was Allison's age, but

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I am much older.

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Speaker 2: But there's you know there.

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Speaker 3: I had this kind of idea that I wanted to

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put this story sort of in the in the two

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different kind of presidential elections, So in the two thousand

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and eight were the kind of Obama's being elected, and

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then in twenty sixteen when Trump is being elected, and

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sort of what it's like to be a young woman

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in this gap, you know, where everything's changing.

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Speaker 2: And so of course the story is.

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Speaker 3: Not about that at all, but it is kind of

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in the background the whole time that that sort of

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these these things that when Rachel's thirteen she thought were

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going to be givens. By the time she's twenty one,

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she realizes, actually these things are feel like they're about

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to be taken away, and that kind of clouds the

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whole story.

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Speaker 1: Aren't you giving us Chile markers on this map? Because

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in our own personal lives it's moving too fast and

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we need books like this and say, oh wait a second,

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what was I doing during this time period?

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 3: Absolutely, I remember growing up, you know, I was. I

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was Rachel's age during during the oj trial, and I

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remember my dad saying to me something like, oh, you'll

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remember this for the rest of your life.

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Speaker 2: This will be a marker.

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Speaker 3: And while that's kind of true, so much stuff has

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happened since then that that's just like a tiny little

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blip on the radar compared to, you know, everything that

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happened now. I was in college during nine to eleven,

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and so all of these different events that happen in

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our young years. And I think particularly for people now,

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it's just there's just too many. There's just too many.

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You don't even know which ones are the defining ones anymore.

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Speaker 1: You're very good with creating in identity, like for instance,

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like we already know that it's too female protagonists, and

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of course, inside my mind, I'm going, how are they

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even getting along here? What's going on? Yeah, you know,

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so it is. But I love the fact that you

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know that you're straightforward with that, because people they know

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who they are, they just don't know how to explain

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how they are, and books like this really open up that,

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you know that page.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's definitely true of Rachel. I think

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Rachel sort of she knows she's an introvert, she knows

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that it's not easy for her to make friends, and

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I think she sees herself as being somebody who's not

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very likable, and she doesn't necessarily know how to change that.

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Whereas I think Alison is very proud of who she is,

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it's just that nobody else seems to like that. And

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so she's kind of in a position of thinking, Okay,

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well I need to be myself. I'm going to be

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myself well regardless of where not anyone else likes it.

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Whereas Rachel's thinking, well, I want to change myself to

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be whom everybody else likes, and that, you know, that

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is kind of at the crux of why they can't

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get along.

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Speaker 1: Please do not move. There's more with Kate Russo coming

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up next. The name of the book is Until Allison.

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We're back with author Kate Russo. The book creates emotion

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and and and so I always wonder, you know, what

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what did you feel before we get the angst, the jealousy,

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the doubt. I mean, because I mean there's I mean,

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it creates an emotion, which to me is making that

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connection with readers.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think for me, it was about sort of

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exploring my own haunting to a certain extent, you know,

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looking back on my own time in junior high and

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in college, and and that sort of moment where you

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have a memory and you just cringe and you think.

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Speaker 2: Oh God, why did I do that? Or that was

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such a horrible thing that I said.

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Speaker 3: And again, I'm hoping, I'm very much hoping that this

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is a universal experience, and I wanted to put that

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in in Rachel. So whilst you know, it seems unlikely

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that she would know or have anything to do with

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Allison's death, she can't help but feel like it's her fault.

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And then the and then the novel sort of goes

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back into thinking about you know, why she why she

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feels that way.

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Speaker 2: It's a real meditation on your own haunting.

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Speaker 1: See, I can relate with that because I mean, I mean,

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Rachel does feel that guilt when when she finds out

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about Alison. And I think that there are people, you know,

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as we grow up beyond high school and college and things,

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we lose friends and we wonder if I would have

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kept in contact with them, would that have happened? Oh

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my god?

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Am I part of the of the problem here.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's actually an enormously selfish it is, you know,

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like in some ways you think, oh, I'm being a

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martyr here by blaming myself for this, but actually no,

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you're just centering yourself. And I think Rachel I like

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to hope that she eventually figured that out, that you

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know that this, at the end of the day wasn't

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about her, but she's determined that.

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Speaker 1: It is the one of the pieces or the glue

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of this story. And listeners need to understand this is

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that you really do. You're standing in the corner of

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walk and don't walk when you say that you've either

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been bullied or you are the bully that is right

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in the center of making a decision.

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Speaker 3: Yes, yes, And I think I think we've all been both,

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and I think that we all need to admit that

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we've been both. And also that person in the middle

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that did nothing and that more often than not was me,

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And that is why I'm haunted about my own youth.

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But I do feel that people, Yeah, it's the moment

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we begin to understand that we have bullied somebody is

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when we can begin to understand why people bully. And

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I think when we other bullies that way, it's really

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difficult to understand where cruelty comes from.

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Speaker 1: The ending of the book. No, no spoiler here, but

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how were you able to bring it together to create

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a major league summertime big surprise, I surprise myself.

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Speaker 3: I think that I think that was part of it. Yeah,

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I think that was part of it. I knew, I

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knew kind of what I wanted to do. There were

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lots of different This young boy, Ethan who's in the book,

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there are lots of different versions of him, and it

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took me a long time to settle on version of

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him that I wanted him to be. The other book,

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so Rachel's has two boyfriends in this book, Ethan in

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her junior high years and Cam and her college years.

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And I knew Cam and her college years from day one.

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He was crystal clear to me. But Ethan really really

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took some work, and he had lots of different iterations,

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and when I finally figured out who I wanted him

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to be, it just opened everything up.

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Speaker 1: Wow, you spoke about your father being a writer as well.

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What is that like for you? Because I mean, what

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are you doing with his writing? And the reason why

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I bring that up is because I've been a daily

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writer for thirty two years and I'm at that yeah,

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where I go, what am I going to do with

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this writing?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a big discussion that we have, actually, I mean,

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as I start to build my own archive, you know,

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I've got stax and stacks and stacks of edited pages

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and I'm only on book two and about that, my dad.

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Speaker 2: Must be I've lost count to be honest.

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Speaker 3: I mean, there's like nine novels and then and then

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some nonfiction and a couple of years ago, I think

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I helped him sort of organize this archive.

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Speaker 2: And there's so much stuff and.

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Speaker 3: You know, we've got it in storage unit at the moment,

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and it's kind of like what do you do with it?

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And it is it's it's a it's a big conversation

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of legacy and how, you know, how useful is any

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of it really?

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Speaker 2: You know, what do you keep and what do you

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throw away?

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Speaker 3: Because again, your ego plays into it, and you you know,

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and I think my dad's probably one of the one

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of the.

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Speaker 2: Least egotistical people in the world. You probably would have

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chucked at all.

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Speaker 3: So it's you know, it is it's a really interesting conversation.

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What you what you do with all of this stuff?

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Speaker 1: Do you believe in the theory of dear future reader?

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In other words, yes, you're writing this book. Wow, until

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Alison for today? But what about what about fifteen twenty

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years from today?

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Speaker 2: I always feel that way.

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Speaker 3: I think I'm really I think I'm really retrospective in

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that way. I always think, now, I don't you know,

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readers today will read it, But I always think about

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what people are going to think, you know, thirty years

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down the road, because you want something to resonate, you know.

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And I tend to edit that way too. So if

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I'm working on the book and I think will this matter.

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Speaker 2: In thirty years?

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Speaker 3: Will this resonate in thirty years? I tend to remove

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it if I don't think it will ye.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, wow Yeah. Where can people go to find out

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more about you and everything you're doing? Because you just

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said this is your second book, Yes, so.

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Speaker 3: Probably the best place is katearussou dot com. The page

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might look confusing it to be I'm an artist and

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a writer, so it's a page for both of those things.

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So you can look at my artwork and find out

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about my books there and the Penguin Random House page.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely.

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Speaker 3: They've got a page for both my book's SuperHost as

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well and Instagram. My account is Russo Kate Love.

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Speaker 1: Please come back to this show anytime in the future.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely.

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Speaker 1: Will you be brilliant today? Okay miss Kate.

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Speaker 2: Oh, thank you so much, thank you.