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Totally Booked with Zibby

Chris Pavone, THE DOORMAN: A Novel

Totally Booked with Zibby

Zibby Owens

Connection, Inspiration, Moms, Entertainment, Arts, Reading, Books, Parenting, Literary

4.4602 Ratings

🗓️ 1 June 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

New York Times bestselling author Chris Pavone returns to the podcast to discuss THE DOORMAN, a pulse-pounding, perceptive, sensationally good novel that explores class, privilege, race, sex, and murder through the eyes of a doorman in a luxury New York building. Chris shares the moving real-life inspiration behind the story—a beloved doorman named Johnny—and opens up about his writing process (including writing flap copy before even starting the novel). The two dive into questions of grief, humanity, and what makes a novel truly compelling.


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Transcript

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0:00.0

Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Booked with Zibby. Formerly, moms don't have time to read books. In my daily show, I interview today's latest, best-selling, buzziest, or underrated authors and story creators, whose work I think is worth your time. As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive

0:24.0

look at everything that's coming out and spend my time curating the best books so you don't

0:29.3

have to.

0:30.3

Stay in the know, get insider insights, and connect with guests like I do every single day.

0:36.2

For more information, go to zibbimedia.com and follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens.

0:44.5

Chris Pavone is the author of The Doorman, a novel.

0:48.5

Chris is the author of The Paris Diversion, The Travelers, The Accident, and the Expats.

0:53.2

His novels have appeared on the bestseller

0:54.7

lists of the New York Times, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal. He has won both the

1:00.0

Edgar and Anthony Awards. His books are in development and have been translated into two dozen

1:05.5

languages. Chris grew up in Brooklyn, graduated from Cornell, and worked as a book editor for nearly two decades. He lives in New York City and on the North Fork of Long Island with his family. Welcome, Chris. Thank you so much for coming back on my show to talk about the doorman. Congratulations. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me too. We just joked about how we should have done this podcast in person in my lobby or your lobby or some

1:28.3

random lobby across the city. So sorry, next time. But this is easier. This is much easier.

1:33.4

Faster, easier. Yeah. We're all about productivity. Wardrobe is easier.

1:38.2

Okay. The Doorman. Please tell listeners what this book is about. The Doorman is a thriller about race and class and

1:46.6

privilege. I think it's a modern day bonfire of the vanities that revolves around a doorman

1:52.0

at a fancy New York apartment house who gets caught up in a web of adultery, robbery, and murder.

1:58.8

Wow, that's a good. It's always good when authors say it's not like about a guy

2:03.0

named chicky who da-da-da-da-da, but it's about race and class and these big issues in the world. I need to

2:08.1

steal that for my own work. But it's also about a guy named chicky. I mean, you're right. A lot of people

2:14.2

do begin with the protagonist, and that's an important part of this book,

2:18.6

is, I think, where it comes from. I think it's sometimes pretty boring to listen to authors

2:23.3

talk about why they wanted to write a book, because really sometimes, who cares? Like, that's not

...

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