Hi, I'm Zibby Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.

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Nora Zelivansky is the author of competitive grieving, a novel. Nora is also the author of

Will You Won't You Want Me? And Semi Charmed Life. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times,

L, Town and Country, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Vanity Fair, among others. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, two kids, and a enormous cat, Waldo. Welcome, Nora. Thank you so much for coming on Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books to Discuss Competitive Grieving. Thank you so much for having me. I'm beyond excited to talk to you today. This is, by the way, one of the best titles, I have to say.

Did you think of that right away? Was that like always the title? I did. It's so funny because normally,

you know, the title comes later or they make you change the title or whatever it is. But in this case,

the title came to me first. And I literally said to a friend of mine, I'm going to write a book

called Competitive Grieving. And then I did. So funny. I love how all throughout the book,

well, not you, the character was envisioning how everybody's funeral and all of that would go

because that is one of the many crazy things my brain does is like constantly think about funerals and like what it would be like and da-da-da-da. But I haven't done it for like every single person I've seen. So like what is your vision for yourself? Like how would you fill that in in the book? And then I'll like ask, actually hold on back up. What is your book about? Please tell listeners. and then I want to know how you would fill out your own funeral, you know, details.

My own. back up. What is your book about? Please tell listeners. And then I want to know how you would fill out

your own funeral, you know, details. My own. Okay. I love that. So the book is a dark comedy,

an unlikely love story about the main character, Ren, who is totally doing just fine, but the bar is sort of low.

She's just sort of like living her life, but maybe not to her full potential.

And her best friend from childhood dies suddenly.

And she is left to confront not just the loss of him, but also the sort of navigation of all of these

complicated, crazy relationships that he's left behind. And so the book is really about sort of the

desire to be seen in the wake of the loss of somebody who isn't there to confirm your significance

to them. So that's what the book is about.

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