Welcome to Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books with Zivie. I'm the host, Zivie Owens. I am an author. My latest is blank,

pub date March 1st, a novel. I'm also a podcaster, obviously, a publisher, a bookstore owner,

and so much more. If you love books, you're in the right place. In fact, we call it the Zivieverse, or really, the L.A. Times called it the Zibbyverse, and we're going with it. Go to Zivie Owens.com to learn more and follow me on Instagram at Zivie Owens. Chris Kander is the author of The Young of Other Animals, a novel. By the way, Chris and I will be on the Zibiverse tour together at an event in Houston at Brazos bookstore. So check out my website Zippy Owens.com for more details on that. Chris is the USA Today bestselling author of A Gracious Neighbor, The Weight of a Piano, which was named an Indinext

great read in both hardcover and paperback, and which the New York Times called immense, intense,

and imaginative. Whisper Hollow, also named an Indynex great read, and 11 stories named by Kirkus

as one of the best books of 2013 and winner of the Independent Publisher Book

Awards for Fiction. She also wrote the children's picture book, The Word Burgler, and the

Audible Originals Eddies and grieving conversations. Her new novel is The Young of Other

Animals. Canders Fiction has been published in 12 languages. She lives in her native Houston with her husband and two children. Welcome, Chris. Thank you for coming back on Moms. Don't have time to read books to discuss the young of other animals. A novel. Congrats. Thank you so much. And thanks for having me back on. You're welcome. And I blurbed this book. I'll have you now. I'm so grateful for it. And I'm so happy that you loved it.

It was so neat reading it, too, after our last podcast where you talked about what had happened to you personally.

And then to be able to read how you fictionalized all the things that came after.

Then I found myself wondering what had happened with you versus the characters.

And anyway, maybe I should back up and why happened with you versus the characters.

And anyway, maybe I should back up and why don't you tell listeners what the young of other animals is about? Well, it's, as you said, it was inspired by an event that happened to me when I was 19 in Spain.

And it was something that I dealt with in my own way, but never really talked about.

And I decided that I was ready to fictionalize it, not write in a memoir because it was too

close. It was like I didn't want to get as close to that flame as memoir would have required

me to do. But fiction, I'm comfortable with. And so that was the inciting incident, a violent attack against a 19-year-old

young woman. But what came after that, what evolved from there was a much different story. Yes,

that is the way that the book begins, but what evolves is really a complicated relationship

between a mother and a daughter.

Mary is the mom. Paula is the 19-year-old daughter college student. It's set in Austin,

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