Erin O. White, LIKE FAMILY: A Novel
Totally Booked with Zibby
Zibby Owens
4.5 • 643 Ratings
🗓️ 4 December 2025
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Debut novelist Erin O. White joins Zibby to discuss her tender and beautifully crafted book, LIKE FAMILY (a Barnes & Noble Book Club and Sarah Selects pick!). The two discuss the novel’s intertwined families in upstate New York, its exploration of queer domestic life, desire in middle age, teenage turmoil, female friendship, and the quiet truths of long-term relationships. Erin also reflects on her writing process, the challenges of parenting teens, and her evolution from memoirist to novelist.
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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 |
| 0:40.2 | at Zibby Owens. Aaron O. White is the author of Like Family, a novel. By the way, this has |
| 0:49.2 | already been picked as the Barnes & Noble Book Club pick, and also Sarah Selects. |
| 0:54.7 | A 52-year-old debut novelist, Erin O. White, is also an essayist and the author of the memoir, |
| 1:00.1 | Given Up for You. After growing up in Colorado and living for 20 years in Western Massachusetts, |
| 1:05.0 | she now lives with her wife and daughters in Minneapolis. |
| 1:07.7 | By the way, I loved this book. Enjoy. |
| 1:13.0 | Welcome, Erin. Thank you so much for coming on Totally Booked to talk about your absolutely beautiful novel. Like family, congratulations. |
| 1:19.7 | I loved this book. You are a really gifted writer, and I'm really excited about it. |
| 1:25.2 | Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to be here. |
| 1:27.9 | And I'm so happy that you liked the book. |
| 1:29.7 | I did. |
| 1:30.1 | I really, |
| 1:30.7 | really did. |
| 1:31.5 | I felt like each chapter could just be a short story that you read in English class. |
| 1:36.8 | It's like fully contained and you're like, you get a sense of the character so fast and what they're thinking and feeling and all the little details. |
| 2:05.1 | And, you know, even like the Bolognese scene when Caroline first meets Mike or something like that. And you talk about how he was behind the bar and just like filling, I know, you said it better than me now. I can't remember. It's something like filling the garnish dish. And you just like see it. That's all you knew. That's only a couple words couple words and anyway i feel like you do that in every scene that like immediately we get the picture and i love that type of thank you so much thank you okay tell sorry for the rambling intro there |
| 2:11.7 | tell everyone what like family is about that's not rambling at all i don't like family okay so like family is about three couples's not rambling at all. I don't know. Like family. Okay, so like family is about three couples, |
... |
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