Scott Johnston, THE SANDERSONS FAIL MANHATTAN: A Novel

Totally Booked with Zibby

Zibby Owens

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

4.4 • 602 Ratings

🗓️ 17 July 2025

⏱️ 19 minutes

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Summary

Zibby chats with author Scott Johnston about his provocative, satirical new novel, THE SANDERSONS FAIL MANHATTAN. Set in the elite world of New York’s Upper East Side, the story follows the unraveling of a seemingly perfect family as they collide with modern cultural and educational upheaval. Scott shares the inspiration behind the book—from viral blog posts about private school politics to real-life frustrations with the erosion of values in elite institutions. He and Zibby delve into themes of status, moral courage, parental pressure, and the societal obsession with optics.

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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 Zibbymedia.com
0:38.7	and follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens.
0:44.6	Scott Johnson is the author of the Sanderson's Fail Manhattan, a novel.
0:48.5	Author of the bestseller campus land,
0:50.5	Scott Johnson grew up in Manhattan and graduated from Yale,
0:53.1	where he later taught as an adjunct.
0:55.1	After graduation, he worked on Wall Street, including a stint in Hong Kong and running a quantitative hedge fund.
1:00.5	More recently, Johnson Shift Gears and co-founded and subsequently sold two tech startups.
1:05.4	He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.
1:07.2	Welcome, Scott.
1:08.2	Thank you so much for coming on Totally Booked with Zibby to talk about the Sanderson's Fail Manhattan. Congrats. Thank you. And I am sitting here in Manhattan as I am, you know, this is like a meta moment as I'm in the scene of the crime here on the Upper East Side. So, yeah, I couldn't wait to do it. Are you sitting in 740 Park? No, no, no, no, no. Oh, no, no, no, no. That would be too funny. No, no, no, no, okay. So tell listeners what your book is about. Sure. So the Sanderson's are an Upper East Side family, and they seemingly have it made. The husband, Will, is already very wealthy, but he's on the cusp of entering the professional
1:46.6	stratosphere at his powerful investment firm, Bedrock Capital. He's about to go from wealth to
1:53.6	mega wealth. And there's always on the next level when you're playing this game. His wife, Ellie,
1:59.5	is an outsider having grown up in an itinerant, you know,
2:04.0	with an itinerant existence as an army brat. And she's really the emotional center of the novel.
2:10.7	Her burning desire is to simply to feel rooted to a community somewhere, something she never
2:17.2	got to feel before,
2:19.1	especially growing up. So when the family moves to Manhattan, which is where Will grew up,
	...

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