Episode 33: Vulnerable

September 11th, 2019
Hosted by Katie Rainey
Guest: Brian Birnbaum
Produced by Katie Rainey
Transcript by Jon Kay
Podcast Assistant: Dylan Thomas

Welcome to the 33rd episode of the Animal Riot Podcast. This is a very special episode of the podcast because our beloved host, Brian Birnbaum, is back, this time in the hot seat as the interviewee. He and podcast producer, Katie Rainey, sit down for an honest and open conversation about struggle, addiction, being vulnerable with each other, and Brian's forthcoming novel Emerald City that will be published this Sunday, September 15th. Join us to hear all this and a special reading from Brian's debut novel. 

>> Katie: Welcome to the 33rd episode of the Animal Riot Podcast, brought to you by Animal Riot Press, a literary press for books that matter. I'm your host for today, Katie Rainey. I’ve been standing in for Brian while he’s been away, but I’m happy to say today that he’s back, this time in the hot seat himself. Hi Brian.

>> Brian: Hi.

>> Katie: I'm still your host for today because today's episode has Brian in the hot seat, and I'm gonna grill you. Uh, you ready?

>> Brian: I'm ready to be roasted like it's fucking Comedy Central.

>> Katie: I've gotten pretty good at this, I think. Maybe not. I don't know.

>> Brian: I don't think I've gotten good at it yet, so it's all good. (laughs)

>> Katie: Well, I've had to get better at this I guess.

>> Brian: I still love you.

>> Katie: Oh, thank you. Well, you are back. I'm happy you are back.

>> Brian: I'm happy too. I'm happy that you're happy that I'm back.

>> Katie: Yeah, we've missed you.

>> Brian: It's a hall of mirrors of happiness

>> Katie: We've missed you. Rosetta and I did. Oh, there's been a lot that's been going on, And today we want to... as you're coming back into the podcast and with the launch of fucking Emerald City on Sunday night, your first novel. How are you feeling about that?

>> Brian: Well, I actually have to say that because I did a reading at Writers and Words last night in Baltimore. So it's been a whirlwind going there on Monday and then being back here now on now it's Wednesday. I had to be reminded to tell people what my book was called and who I was. (laughter) I'm not I'm not good at the marketing part yet, but I'm working on it. I'm not. I'm a true artist

>> Katie: Well, it's the Wednesday before your book launch, so we better get really good at marketing.

>> Brian: That's why I need you.

>> Katie: So we're gonna release this episode tomorrow. We're really crunching it this week cause there's just a lot going on. And so with the launch of Emerald City coming out, we thought this would be a really good time to put you in the spotlight and interview you about your book and everything that's been going on. And you have been gone for a little while. Do you want to start with that?

>> Brian: Sure. Why not? Do you have a question or should I just launch into it?

>> Katie: Well, you've been gone and I've just said that you've been away and I don't know if you want to... however you want to launch into it.

>> Brian: Well, I think the best way to go into it is to thank the people that have gotten me here to this point. Most importantly, Katie and my family and some friends whom I won't name just because I don't know, I don't know who wants to be named on here. So I've been struggling with addiction for a long time... my whole life, really. You know, it got to a point where they call it a progressive disease for a reason. And it got to a point where, you know, it was unmanageable, as they say, I was fortunate enough to somehow come to the conclusion that I wanted help, even though I had to overcome some serious obstacles to get there. And I had help that other people aren't as privileged to have. So basically I went, I went into a rehab program and I planned to stay there for a detox. But when you're dope sick it lasts a long time, especially when you're using a lot of other stuff. So I made the very very wise decision on my second or third day there, with the help of the amazing staff there that I basically had to give up my first book tour in North Carolina, which Katie went in and under extreme duress, which I cannot overstate. And like you, I'll forever be indebted for.

>> Katie: Now, people can go back and listen to the episodes that I hosted.

>> Brian: Yeah, and know exactly what you were undergoing. I don't know. I feel like I'm gonna cry right now. I have a lot of people who are... There are a lot of people who are more kind to me than I might have deserved, but...

>> Katie: Definitely more kind to you than you are to yourself.

>> Brian: Well, I'm starting to work on that feeling. But this you know, this whole process has taught me to be proud of myself. This is the first time I've ever been proud of myself. And like retroactively or anachronistically, however you wanna put it, like I actually feel proud of having written something, you know, by the end, like I mean, really like addiction is not... It's a spiritual death, and obviously there were a lot of larger health risks. But that's the main of it. It's like, you know, it kind of puts in perspective Why am I doing the things that I'm doing? Even with this amount of time that I have under my belt now it's pretty apparent to me that no spiritual death is worth trying to cover up feelings, which is the reason that we do what we do. That's it. We don't want to deal with our feelings. We don't want to deal with what's going on in our head. Yeah, I mean, one of the reasons I was willing to talk about this right now. I first spoke with my parents because I wanted to make sure that they were comfortable with it is because to me, this is not...and even while I was using, I knew this. This is not a moral issue. It's a health issue. It's a mental health and physical health issue. It's to be ashamed of it is to perpetuate it. We all know what's going on in this country right now, and I'm not just like another number. I'm not another statistic and neither is the person that's living on the street. So you know, it's important to me. So I decided to talk about it.

>> Katie: We did go back and forth before this podcast debating whether or not we're going to share this because it's a lot and especially right before your book coming out. I mean, that's kind of a big bomb to drop and a lot of truth that you're sharing right now with some folks that we don't even know, you know? So it's a hard thing to do. But I think the thing that's really important for us is that living your truth is really fucking hard and important. And so I think that's part of this is trying to be bare and try to be vulnerable. And I think also like, one thing that we've really learned together is...

>> Brian: Tracy an NA friend... I just got a call from a fellow recovering addict. That's how it works for people. (laughter)

>> Katie: I think one thing that we're really learning is how to be vulnerable with each other in ways that, like I don't think that we've ever really explored and what you're going through has opened us up in ways that we've had to and wanted to and didn't even know we wanted to. And I don't know. I think this is part of it. Is that vulnerability. And I'm sure there will be people who judge us for this, But fuck them.

>> Brian: Well, you know what? Not fuck them, because...

>> Katie: Bless their hearts.

>> Brian: No. I mean, you know, I judge people every day. We all do, you know, And I judge people, and really, when it comes down to it in my deepest heart of hearts, I don't believe that judgment ever works. Ever. So, like all I can do is, you know, I have to just take care of myself. And, you know, I understand. I mean, especially when you hurt people like they're going to judge you or even people that I haven't hurt. You know, that is what it is. I was lucky enough not to really hurt too many people, but I especially hurt the people that were closest to me, which really sucks,

>> Katie: Well, we've definitely been through a lot in the last few months, and I think just on that theme of being vulnerable, there's one moment that just came to mind. You said it was a turning point for you too in recovery. Do you know what I'm talking about?

>> Brian: Yes, I'm writing about it. So, yes, I know exactly what you're talking about.

>> Katie: Well, I think that that's important to talk about because I'm sure there's people listening who are suffering from the same illness or going through similar things, or have a loved one that it's going through it. It is widespread and vast.

>> Brian: And most people that are suffering from it. I don't know where deny that they are. I mean, that's what we do, you know? I mean, you know, you do you think you need it to survive. And I'm not talking about a physical way, like, Oh, I'm gonna start going through withdrawal or whatever. Like, I literally didn't think I could be happy until I got outside of it, you know?

>> Katie: Well, there was something that really changed for you just in recovery. That changed your trajectory. And I don't know if you want to talk about that moment.

>> Brian: Yeah, No, I would love to, and I definitely want to write something about this. I've been working on it, but it's really early days, and I'm trying to focus on myself more. But basically when I was in rehab, it was so it was pretty bad for me. It was bad to the point that when my parents came to visit, one of the administrators who did the orientation singled me out in front of all of the people, the parents and the loved ones and everyone and said like their child is going through like absolute hell, like I know what he's going through. I've been through that like, you know, and I, like, kind of broke the record for, like, the amount of days I was in detox at that facility, and what it made me do is act in unfortunate ways, and it's kind of like the other. It's like the other side of the coin to active addiction. When you're behaving in ways that are not yourself. When you're withdrawing, you're gonna behave in ways that are not yourself. You're just an insurmountable amount of pain, you know?

And I was, you know, I was doing the standard rehab thing where I was calling people and yelling at them and telling me to get out of there because I was... It's like, really it's ineffable. And one of the conversations I had with Katie really triggered her based on her own past experience and the way she's been treated in the past. You know, afterwards I was angry because I was like, Okay, you don't know what I'm going through right now, right? Like I want to get out of here because I would do anything to stop, like what this pain is like, you know? And then I went to one of the groups. I couldn't pay attention, obviously, and which is saying something because, Mr E. He's one of my favorite group leaders there. But afterwards we were talking outside with, like, you know, the rest of the patients and stuff and like, you know, I made a lot of really good friends there, and two of them were trying to give me advice. And one of them said when he needs to talk to his wife, it needs to be in a controlled environment, and what he was saying was very practical. It was there's too much anger in this relationship, blah, blah blah, where in order for us to hash this out in an uncontrolled setting, AKA not in therapeutic setting, you know, with a counselor, someone supervising. 

But you know, you learn to pick up signs when you become more of like a spiritual person, which isn't to say some religious person... it is a very different thing, but you learn to pick up things. And I had already made the decision that, like my life was out of control. I knew I wanted to be sober, but at that point, I also all I heard was the word controlled environment. And all I've remembered was thinking, I am completely out of control. And so I went right back to the phone and I called Katie and I, you know, despite what  whatever justification or rationalize rationale that I had for my own reasons for being upset, it just didn't matter anymore. It was like it was like a clicking point, where it was like I need to take responsibility for what I've done to myself, you know, regardless of whatever trauma or depression or anxiety and all of that subsumes you know. There are reasons that I got to the place I was at. But those reasons don't matter anymore unless you don't want to get better, that's it. That's the decision, like that's what, like the 12 step program is all about. That's what I like so much about. It is like no matter how much therapy I went to, like, I want to psycho analysis for three years and it gave me some tools. But no matter what, if I didn't apply the idea that I needed to take responsibility for changing my own actions, starting with putting down drugs and alcohol then I was never going to change. I was just going to be a self pitying, self centered, you know, individual that I still am to this day and I will be. But I have to constantly be vigilant of it, you know, that's it. And so, yeah, that moment was pretty profound for me. It was profound in a way that was strange because, you know, at by that point, like 15 or 16 days in they were calling me sweaty Jesus because I had my hair down and I was like support. Yes, there were people that were pretty concerned about me. But honestly, that I will speak to that, I'm very glad that that happened, because I will never forget that. And I never want to go through that again. So...

>> Katie: I think they like just to add on to that, like that doesn't change everything, right? Like they're still. We've still had moments of struggle since then and, you know, you learning to live with your anxiety and just your depression... Although I don't know if you would actually use that word for you. I think I'm the one that struggles probably more with the clinical word depression, but I don't know. I think it's giving you the tools to sort of navigate in a new way those moments of anxiety that you've fallen to, which we've seen happened in the last few weeks. Like, you know, you've had moments, but then I don't know. I don't know. I don't want to say about that, but I just I think like I think it's important to acknowledge that like it, it doesn't just disappear, you know, with a moment of profundity. And I think that you and I are both skeptical of moments of profundity times in our lives

>> Brian: They're only checkpoints. And, like, uh, the idea that you think it's gonna disappear is the idea that will lead you back to using again. Whether you're an addict or it'll lead you back to your depression again or something like that. Like if you're not, I don't know. It's like I think the American health system has made a lot of advancements and that mental health has become a big issue, which is great. But I do think they're still in idea that there's a panacea out there. You go to a therapist, you vomit up all your feelings. Yeah, and yeah, you event you'll feel better for a little bit, but it does. It does take work, and that's it. And I've only, like, really just begun. Like I have a very long way to go. All I've done is begun to scrape the surface that if I listen to certain thoughts in my head that I know are bad for me or if I know if I don't recognize certain patterns like that. That's just the beginning. Like, you know, it's like, really like Now it's, you know, at some point it's going to be about me figuring out exactly where my life I am so angry and we're so anxious or so afraid and so greedy or whatever it is, you know. But the good news is meetings really help. And I, uh, the moments that I've had like that I have done that and felt very a lot better, you know, because they are just like they are a version of society that would function in a lot more healthy way, even though people people kind of view it like a uolt. And it's anything but they're all suggestions, you know, That's it. No one's. No one's forcing you to be there.

>> Katie: I think that this is incredibly brave of you to share on our podcast. And I do wanna acknowledge that because I know how hard this is, and also with your book coming out like that's a scary thing to do, and I think you're doing a really brave thing, and I think that, you know, it's really admirable for somebody who might be listening, Who might need that help us well and also know that they can reach out to us that, like, you know, if no one else is listening or if you feel like you can't like... we are two people who have definitely been through the trenches.

>> Brian: Yep, I've already Even before I got clean and up till now I've already, like, corresponded with some people, even just through Animal Riot, you know, who have gone through experiences or still in it or whatever. Whatever stage you're at, that's nothing to be ashamed of. I think is the important thing. I know what that feels like. I know what it feels like when you're putting people through hell, but you're not putting anyone through hell more than yourself. I also know that now.

>> Katie: I'll say, for my part, Thio like I think it's important for families of loved ones you know, who are going through addiction or in recovery or whatever, to talk about what they're also doing. Like I'm also in Narnon and going to meetings and therapy myself because, you know, I definitely was in when it was at the height of everything that we were going through, I was definitely in like the Okay, Katie's most intense multitasking... how do I take care of everything right now.

>> Brian: Which is exactly what you need to learn not to do.

>> Katie: Yeah, well, I mean that that also happened like while you were in rehab and in recovery I also had a moment of collapse. Like after the book tour after like doing everything, I fell apart for good two weeks there, and I was a bit reclusive and couldn't see anybody. And I had to just like I mentally was spent and really had to dig deep and feel a lot of things and work through a lot of things and go to meetings and talk to people and I mean, it's recovery myself, you know, in Noranon and we say, you know, we're addicts as well. We're addicted to addicts and especially like wanting to help them and do everything for them and love them and make them not feel like you were feeling. And that's a really hard thing to say. Like I'm powerless over their addiction and like what they're going through and like, I can't change that. So what are the things that I can change and like, what are the things that are OK for me to detach with love, as we say. And so that's been a huge journey for me as well, it was just like learning that, and it's still really hard daily. We both got all the books We got all the literature around us because that's what we do. We read and write. You wrote a time I did in rehab.

>> Brian: Yeah, after about two weeks, I remember, unlike the 10th day I wrote for, like, three hours all these memories of, like, all these shitty things that I'd done like it was It was like, almost like skipping to the fourth step, but, like, not really, you know, because, like, I'm not acting like I actually did that like thoroughly yet, you know, it started with that. And then as I started to get a little better, I had a really good friend of mine come down and get them to put me back on the right meds because it was not tenable what was happening. I was just I was coming off of too much stuff, basically. And then I started... I started writing, and I mean, like, the turnaround was like, incredible. I mean, I wrote, like, 60 pages and over those two weeks, and I had all these ideas and I put on, like, almost 20 pounds like it was crazy. I mean, like, you really start to see exactly what you did to yourself, and the idea that I couldn't write without using...

>> Katie: I was going to say that.

>> Brian: That's the biggest thing. And I think a lot of people it's good for writers to here. And I know Stephen King has talked about this. That was his biggest fear. And I remembered that I kept that in mind while I was, like, detoxing. I was like, Okay, like he says, it's better. I'm gonna trust him, And it is. It's like you're just not as confident. That's the only difference. And even by the end, like you're not confident anymore, it doesn't do anything like by the end of your use, the reason you give up is because it's not doing anything for you. You literally don't know another way to live. And what I was gonna come back to is what was especially difficult for you and like, you know, not to, like, put words in your mouth or anything. But like I think this is true is that during that period of collapse you were in a state of limbo because you can get clean but not change, you know? And it's like that moment of profundity wasn't some like snap correction like chiropractor bullshit, like, you know, but like at the same time it's like I do know what I'm acting out now. I know that. I think I know when I'm in my head and just telling myself I'm a piece of shit. It might last a day we've seen that happen (laughter). But like I go to a meeting and I'm like, Oh, yeah, like I'm fucked up. The problem isn't drugs. It's me. I am the problem. You know, like I tell myself I'm terrible. All that stuff. And you can give me evidence to the contrary. You can show me everything I accomplish is a kid. All the stats and it doesn't matter. It's not gonna change the brain waves. You know, the only thing I can do about that is doing the work myself. But yeah, anyway, so, yeah, I know that that period of collapse, I think I had a lot to do with not knowing whether I was actually going to commit to not just sobriety, but, like, you know, yeah, am I gonna be in some state of ambivalence about, like, whether my life is worth living or like this and that, like, all that stuff, You know, it's like it's really hard. Getting sober is, I don't think watch what's watch American relapse, and you can see how hard it is

>> Katie: Yeah, we got really addicted to that show Dope Sick Nation. Yeah, that's that was definitely a hard thing for me to parse through. The word trigger is an interesting word, because I think there are people who abuse and misuse language, as we know.

>> Brian: Sure.

>> Katie: And I think the word gets a really bad rap for a lot of reasons. And I think people don't pay attention to actually like what an actual trigger looks like and feels like and really, how it like they're people out there who like I mean, there were, I mean to be to be really perfectly honest. There were moments in that collapse where I was not myself at nearly 33 years old anymore. I was myself at 13 years old and 16 years old, and you were not you. And I relived some things that were just like all right, like it was really painful. And I had a hard time separating you from those others feelings, which I'm still working on. It's a long, hard process, but I think that was part of it where I was just so spent physically that and mentally that it just like I like all the walls that we like to talk about, that I put up, which I do, and that's part of my problem too. I just kind of couldn't hold back these, like, irrational things I was thinking. And so I don't know, I don't turn this around back to me. This is the episode about you.

>> Brian: I think it's interesting from an objective standpoint.

>> Katie: I'm really diving into this.

>> Brian: And also, yet we're not We're not gonna be this fucking serious all the time that just because I'm not banging back George pours anymore doesn't mean I, like just, like, somber ass like (laughter) zombie.

>> Katie: No, certainly not we. We are two people that enjoy laughter. And I don't know how many dark jokes we've made over the past 2 months. Most people would probably think that we're pretty irreverent for that.

>> Brian: On my group thread with my friends, I said, if Nadal lost the the U S. Open then I was gonna relapse. They thought it was pretty funny.

>> Katie: Probably. Yeah. Okay, we'll keep that one to ourselves.

>> Katie: They know I was kidding.

>> Katie: Well, I do think this is a really important conversation that will that will come up more and more. And we have guests that we've already planned to have come on, who are incredibly more knowledgeable than either of us and can speak. At some point in the future, they'll be coming on on talk about their experiences, and we'll talk I'm sure more and more about this, but it was important for us to both say, like what's been going on and to be honest with you animals.

>> Brian: Also more than anything to just again not make this an issue that people hide in the dark because that's what perpetuates this problem. I mean, we have a serious... we have a problem in this country that's far surpassed the HIV epidemic, and it's only gonna get worse. And we're in an opium war with China, basically, at this point where they're just importing fentanyl into our country. And I could have been one of those people you know, just as easily. And it's serious, like people don't want to talk about things. People didn't want to talk about cancer at some point. It's crazy, like, you know, it's just crazy what we do. It doesn't make any sense, but in the moment it does, you know? But yeah, so none of this is to make excuses. But this is bigger than myself, a lot bigger than myself. And when you really dig into it and see what people have gone through when you like, you know, it's tough, it's tough. But I also wrote a book

>> Katie: I was gonna say, and there's a book coming out.

>> Brian: There's a lot of stuff about addiction in there. So subconsciously, I was channeling some stuff.

>> Katie: Yeah, well, that was that was actually gonna be like my... I was gonna turn into the book with that

>> Brian: Sober Brian has psionic powers.

>> Katie: I do wanna turn to Emerald City now, and I'm sure we'll return to this and talk more about it. But I want to say thank you for sharing that, cause I know how hard this is and coming to share this on our platform for anyone to listen is a lot.

>> Brian: I won't deflect it like I usually do. It is hard. My stomach is sweating. You know, there's a lot of things I've done. They have been very hard. But talking about it is very hard.

>> Katie: I'm proud of you.

>> Brian: Thank you.

>> Katie: Tell me about this book. Tell me the story of this book, because I don't know if you've actually fully set it on this podcast.

>> Brian: Yeah, and we're not gonna read it off the back are we? Let's do an organic like Brian tells someone on the street

>> Katie: Tell us what the book's about, but then tell us the history of this book coming to fruition, and I want to know because it's a very interesting story.

>> Brian: Cool, Cool, Cool. Okay, so I'll start with Benison, like, even though there's three main characters and to me...

>> Katie: How about you start with the title

>> Brian: Well, yeah, Emerald City, you'd see I'm still working on it. You see what I'm saying? Yeah, my name's Brian Birnbaum by the way. So yes, so there's three main characters, and none of them are above the other in terms of importance. They're all equally important to me. But I'll start with Benison because, like it kind of like it's easier to kind of move outward like in a multi valence sense. But so basically, he's a college basketball player, and he's struggling like big time because he basically is double thinking himself always on the court and that comes from my personal experience. I'll talk about that, but he also has death parents like I do, and his dad also owns a sign language interpreting company. However, unlike my dad, his dad is running video relay service minutes. Video Relay service or VRS as they call it in the industry is basically a videoconferencing, interpreting service for the deaf. So basically a deaf individual wants to call, Let's say, their doctor. They, using a monitor, whether on their computer, their iPad, whatever, call a relay service. And they see the interpreter who's got a headset, who then calls the number that they're trying to call. And so it's interpreted, you know, But what they're doing are running phony calls. They're hiring deaf people on one side of the room to call interpreters on the other side and just sit there and maybe talk or idle or, like, you know, do whatever, eat snacks. And so they're making millions, and it's tied up into organized crime.

And that's where Julia comes in. Because Julia's family is somewhat loosely connected to this deal. Her granddad basically approached Benison's dad for it. And meanwhile, Julia's granddad works for a like this, really nebulous CIA involved kingpin who basically is obsessed with this ritualistic herb from an ancient tribe like Equatorial, sort of ancient tribe, that Julia's granddad contracts Peter to run this across the Canadian border for him after he picks it up from this barge opposite the Maritimes. So basically, that's the gist of the story. Now each character has a piece of me. Benison's sports anxiety is something that I experienced in my life. I was a big time athlete. You know, basketball, baseball. And I basically completely lost my ability to perform. It was basically performance anxiety...

>> Katie: I think that's called yips?

>> Brian: Yeah, uh, I don't know.

>> Katie: Isn't that what they call it?

>> Brian: Yeah, they call it yips.

>> Katie: Look at me and sports terms. Sports.

>> Brian: Yeah, yips. That's an extreme variety. There were times I was like throwing up in trash cans and shit in having panic attacks. But  basically was just devastating because I couldn't do the thing I love the most. And like I couldn't do it anymore. That's like where I've really first started to feel terrible about myself, you know? But that was kind of just like the beginning. So that's where I kind of got the idea for Benison's character and then obviously having deaf parents and an interpreting company. All that stuff that's where that came into play, even though, you know, obviously my dad has never engaged in this sort of illegal activity before. That stuff has happened in the VRS world. It was rampant at one point. And so, like, you know, I did interview my dad about people that he knew in the industry. People that he's known that have gone to prison and it's a really interesting story. So I started from there. Julia's character came about because, honestly, I was very interested in an Italian family that was like getting out and sort of like becoming legit and not like turning their money into something legit, but from the family getting out of the family, which they did. And her father's an addict, and he had, like, 20 years clean and at some point in the book he relapses.

>> Katie: That's probably one of the most heartbreaking parts of the book. For me is the day that Julia, where she's like 12 at the time and discovers that her father is an addict for the first time. Or in recovery. Like she follows him to a meeting and hears him talking about it.

>> Brian: I mean, basically, you know, I won't say why she follows him. I don't want to give it away. But, yeah, she basically follows him and finds it out. And so I wanted to write about all of that, and that's where the character came from. And then her meeting Peter like That's where I kind of got the idea to kind of like blend those worlds and there's a lot of serendipity and novels a little bit more than in real life. But honestly, not really like in real life, that's where you hear these crazy fucking documentaries and shit, you know? Yeah, like crazy serendipity. And so she basically is tasked to find Peter for her granddad, but they kind of like spark a romantic relationship, and Peter's like a raging alcoholic cokehead who has a very tormented past. And Peter comes from that part of me that's just like an entire part that just wants to be morbid and dark and feels like sometimes I'll sit there and say am I a psychopath? Even though what they say is if you ask yourself if you're a psychopath, you probably aren't psychopath. But that's like that's where it comes from. And Peter's not a psychopath...

>> Katie: I think any writer who writes something that's not, you know, romance novels... Who writes anything dark, at some point has asked themselves like - what's wrong with me?

>> Brian: Exactly. That's where his character came from. I mean he came from the thoughts I'd have, whether it was from a really bad hangover or being strung out or whether it was just from, like existential just despair, you know?

>> Katie: So you have been working on this book for six years?

>> Brian: Yes.

>> Katie: Six fucking years.

>> Brian: Because when I started, I like couldn't write. I wrote a whole massive first draft and I threw the entire thing out

>> Katie: Well, what's incredible to me about you, and now it's time for me to sing your praises and you to sit their uncomfortably while you accept my praise.

>> Brian: And my stomach continues to sweat.

>> Katie: When I say you've re written this novel six times, it is not like, Oh, you changed a thread in the novel but overall, the structure is the same. From the first word to the last you have rewritten this novel six times. There are millions and millions of words that you've thrown out to get it to this it aeration which is the best in iteration and that's the one that's getting published.

>> Brian: Yeah, and I honestly do agree with that. Like it really is the best one, which I am proud of that. Whether people like it or not, I hope they do but I am like, Okay, I did my best. You know I did. I did rewrite it

>> Katie: I read every iteration and so I can attest that this is the best iteration. The fourth iteration was my second favorite.

>> Brian: Ooh, wow. I almost missed.

>> Katie: Yeah, you almost know you went back a little with the fifth. But you are the last two minutes of the game.

>> Brian: Classic overthinking it.

>> Katie: Yeah, but yes. Now so the story of getting this published, though, I mean, we have our own press now, and we're starting with your book because we want to, Not only because it's a great book, but because we want to make sure that we're doing this press right. And any mistakes we made, which we have made mistakes, that we make. You've been kind enough to be the guinea pig and to let us, you know, trial and error on your novel. But it almost didn't get published with us. Well, you want to tell that story?

>> Brian: Well it didn't really almost get published. It was on the path to it. And again, I hope this can be like a message faith to other writers. Even though I'm the last person to be giving this message, at least before in my life, I would be the last person to give this message. I've heard from some money writers how close they get, and then it goes, and it's really hard to deal with. I actually really repressed it when it happened and it was bad. But basically about two years ago, I think maybe three now, actually, I got an agent at Writers House, which is a really big time agency.

>> Katie: With the fourth iteration.

>> Brian: Yeah, with the fourth which is Katie's second favorite, Um, yeah, they they have Rachel Kushner, Vollmann, Franzen and for you know, whether you like him or not. You know, obviously he's huge. They have big writers, you know? And I was like, Holy shit, this is it. I'm like, I got this. And then my agent ended up leaving the industry and promising me to pass me along, which he did welch on that. And it was like it was on Katie's birthday, which is two days after my birthday. And so I didn't tell her because I didn't want to ruin her birthday. But yeah, it sucked. It sucked, man, like because I got that email and there was something about the email where I could tell that, like, I think he's just out. I don't think he cares what happens with his clients and, like, I could just tell you know, there's something about it, and and even though, like I'm working on that voice that tells me things that I don't know, like a the same time. I had this feeling I could tell by the way, like there's a terseness to his emails and stuff and I was really hard, but, like, what kind of really buoyed me was our was our readings here, you know, you had you and Devin's reading series. I kept going and I kept seeing people and like, kept in contact with people. It's almost like being in fucking recovery in a way like, seriously, it was like coming back from just like, literally just being dropped off a cliff. Because you have, like, this big time agent, and you're like, Oh, shit like this is it. I just worked on it and I revised it. And like, even though I got it to this better iteration like, it just didn't. Well, you know, you didn't think it was as good, but still, I mean, it was kind of like it was a similar book, you know? And I think it just kind of needed more trimming. And maybe it would have gotten picked up in this state. Who knows, But, like, it kind of just went cold. I got looks. I got a lot of looks from different places, but it never got picked up and meeting Sergio, as is our tradition. I'll bring up Sergio because I have too.

>> Katie: I have done that since you've been gone. It's like a tic now.

>> Brian: I feel like like I'm gonna get struck by lightning if I don't do it. But yeah, meeting Sergio and his wife, Susanna. I mean, Susanna is honestly, just like one most brilliant people I've ever met. And like what they did with his first book. I mean, cause he's a talent that, like, if he never saw the way today my life would be significantly worse, like just significantly worse. And that's just, like, really hard to say. Because how many other people are like that out there? Because they published that book that he couldn't publish for three years because people thought it was too difficult? That's it. And then when when Susanna put it out, lo and behold, good shit sells. And so, like meeting, meeting them and, like, kind of getting some encouragement from them and then, like, you know, when I was in the kind of like the depths of, like, threatening to self publish it, that's kind of when our third partner, Jon, who's just a fucking whiz kid, like like he can do anything. Like really like he came in and and he was like, we should just start our own press. And the first thing I was like, Yeah, we got it. We got Katie on board and I know Jon like didn't know Katie that well at that point. And so he's like, What the fuck is this like some kind of like like probably to himself, But then very quickly realized it all worked out far for the better because I say jokingly and I know that they keep telling me that this is not true. But I am definitely the least important part of this

>> Katie: I'm gonna cut this out. It's just not true.

>> Brian: I think I have good taste. And, like, I like the fact that I read our submissions and stuff. But other than that, I mean, like, I am not fit to function in capitalism. I'm just like, I can write.

>> Katie: You don't know how many times while you were gone Jon and I were just like, Okay, we're just gonna put this off until Brian gets back. We can't do it without him.

>> Brian: We're not gonna get into this.

>> Katie: I'm bringing it up.

>> Brian: I'm good at following orders.

>> Katie: You are the heart in this project.

>> Brian: Well, thank you. I don't think there's any shame in that. I think I need to follow orders. I think that's like my thing now is like, I need to listen to what other people have to say. So that was my journey and like, That's a thing like Susanna and Sergio were there the whole way. Like I even begged Susanna to just be my agent before we did any of this. And she was like, No, I'm not gonna take your money. I'm like, Fine. Then just fucking do it for free

>> Katie: We are indebted to them for life, for sure. Which is why we just keep saying Sergio's name on this podcast. Sergio, Sergio.

>> Brian: Sergio, but yeah, and also I just want to give thanks to everyone else who blurbed the book, too, because like some of my favorite writers like people have blurbed the book. And it's just very surreal, like, you know, like, I don't give a shit if, like, I'm so happy that this is published by our own venture now, because like that, it's like to me, like I kind of see it is like the rest of that's like, uh, it's a cool vanity project if Penguin Random House publishes it's cool, but like having the people that I respect say that they liked it was like...t

>> Katie: That's funny that you call Penguin a vanity project when most people would say that about self publishing or indie publishing.

>> Brian: Yeah, I know that's a very ironic thing to say, but I think idiomatically, I think you know what I mean.

>> Katie: Yeah, I get it.

>> Brian: It's like, the reason we're starting this is because if you do get published there, you might not get the publicity that you deserve. You get midlisted or something like that. Which is something that we're trying to change. It just all worked out for the better. It really did. I'm so happy it worked out this way. I'm really excited.

>> Katie: We've got a wild party that we're about to throw.

>> Brian: Yeah, it's gonna be no bullshit.

>> Katie: There's only one reading because we are doing a partnership with PEN America and the Poetry project.

>> Brian: Which is important.

>> Katie: The reading series in New York, there's a project the September that reading series around New Yorker doing called Breakout, a movement to reintegrate incarcerated writers into the literary community. It's just super exciting.

>> Brian: And it's only a start. I want to say I think the whole... I feel obligated to feel compelled to say that, like having gone through what I've gone through, I've talked to a lot of people that have been shuttled through the prison system and the integration system as a whole and it's just fucked up. It's so hard and, like this is the least we can do it. It's like, honestly, I don't know...

>> Katie: The project too is not about like... so many people tokenize quote unquote prison writers, which most writers who are incarcerated hate that term because they expect incarcerated writers to write about certain things. And like if you write about something besides your incarceration than people tend not to give it the time of day it deserves. And so this movement is really about like, how do we as reading series in the literary community look at incarcerated writers. How are we treating them in the community? How are we talking about them? And how are we showcasing their work in a responsible and respectful way. And so each reading series is hosting the work of a currently incarcerated writer, which you will be reading the work of Saint James Harris Wood. He's out in California but has struggled with addiction and drugs himself since all kind of serendipitous. And you'll be reading not from your book at your own launch party. You'll be reading his work, which I think is pretty cool,

>> Brian: Because if you want to read it, just fucking buy it, you know? Or win a raffle there.

>> Katie: Yeah. Well, I would like to hear some of Emerald City.

>> Brian: Oh, dear.

>> Katie: If you're game for sure. And can I make a request?

>> Brian: Oh, you want me to read a specific part?

>> Katie: Since we talked about it, I'm wondering if you might want to read that part with Julia discovering...

>> Brian: Okay.

>> Katie: I wanna introduce this by reading Sergio's blurb for it. Since we talk about him so much, I want to hear what he had to say about your novel in Emerald City.

============

“In Emerald City, Brian Birnbaum expertly creates a kinetic but pained world. The result is an addictive blend of compelling discovery and desultory recognition. Above all, it’s the authenticity of the work that most controls. Birnbaum has a true gift for creating individuated characters and people like Julia jump off the page as not just magnetic emblems but as perfect repositories for the empathic magic of fiction. Then there’s the prose. It’s subtly sly and inventive throughout but also perfectly pitched to particular story and structural demands—expansive enough to encompass the universal but also honed enough to beautify the granular. This is preternatural assurance. A moving and intelligent work that resonates beyond the final page.”

—Sergio De La Pava

    author of A Naked Singularity and Lost Empress

============

>> Brian: I could die now. So the only thing you need to know is that Julia is in middle school and is very suspicious about what her father is up to. She's you know, she's getting to that age where she's wondering where he's going at certain points.

============

Chapter 17 of Emerald City by Brian Birnbaum

Her first day in Ashbury Grammar’s junior high wing had ended precisely a couple minutes earlier. Adolescents, skins bright with overproduction of hormones and collagen, thronged the pickup curb, which she avoided in favor of crossing the playground, where K-6 kids met their parents. Beyond the junior high wing, she heard the whistles of pickup proctors, the honks of minivans, the bustle of kids boarding buses. Her head down, she tracked the asphalt underfoot, staring at gravel pocked with pearlescent grits like stony salami. In her broody ruminations, it hit her…how she was here…doing this…right…now.

Time and space was weird, but…not as weird as existing.

Was she the one thinking, or was her brain thinking? Or both? Perhaps the jump to sixth grade was jarring. The hallways were clinical, medical, dire, though absent were the grammar wing’s color-coded routes to classes, which had always made her think of the variegated lines directing them to the room in which Aunt Ginny’s mother had passed.

Junior high was newfangled. She was supposed to enter through the side door, where 7th- and 8th-graders loitered, some of them speaking on things she thought only high schoolers did. The teachers had all conspired to remind them that things would be different on the new wing. They were no longer entitled to certain amenities. The welfare system was banished. Their grades would reflect the intersection of intelligence and effort.

Tiger-economy of tweenage endocrine systems.

Pedagogical fearmongering.

Teeming fear.

Skepticism: if things are not as they seem, who can be blamed for what they see?

But Julia was certain: her father was stepping out. Her certainty was that of a prophet’s, the certainty that signals birds south. The certainty, according to the media she consumed, of the male biological imperative—XY. The certainty, according to Julia’s more progressive instinct, of human nature—A, G, C, T.

Each Sunday, her father attended mass, alone. This past Sunday he returned in a slick white coupe, which whizzed past the stop sign at the corner after dropping him off.

“How was it?” her mother asked at dinner.

Awaiting his response, Julia’s eyes swung like an owl clock’s.

“Pass yours, hon.” Meatballs squished as she ladled them on plates.

“I’m twelve,” Julia announced, taking the bowl and ladling her own.

“There was a ceremony for Father Dominic,” he said. “Everyone lit a candle.”

“So sad.”

 So sad?

There was a woman. In a speedy sports car. Dropping her father off well after mass had ended. If he could rationalize Catholicism, his mind could perform the somersault into another woman’s bed.

The next Sunday, Julia told her mother she was going to—um, shit, she hadn’t planned the finer points. She’d procrastinated inside To Kill a Mockingbird, her first book report not due until mid-October.

Standing in the kitchen—her mother making tea, her father grading essays—Julia prepared words that would convince them to condone an unaccompanied trip to the Bay Bridge. She stared at them, much in the way she did when poking fun at their throttled focus. No matter her angle, the proposal sounded insane to her mind’s ear. She was twelve. Organizing solo excursions went far beyond her jurisdiction. Asking for a ride to Chelsea’s or Shayla’s— who were barely even school friends, let alone weekend besties— would risk her mother seeing her to the front door.

Unless…

“Hey Dad?”

“J-Dog,” he semaphored. “What is proverbially up?”

“Please don’t.”

“Got it. No means no,” he X’d indexes.

“Oh my—Dad. Gross much?”

“What’s up?”

“Can you drop me off at the Bridge?”

His pen paused over a teacherly flourish.

“Coach Jack wants us to do a long run today but I’m not gonna do all these hills.”

“How about I drive three hours down the 5 and drop you off at a checkpoint? I’m sure you’ll make friends with the rest of the sex slaves.”

“Jonathan,” rang her mother’s appall.

“Come on, Dad. If I have to do my loop four times I’ll go crazy.”

“Let her go, honey. It’s only a few miles away,” said her mother. “It’s a nice area.”

“What is this, the voice of reason in my head?”

Her mother added, “The voice of reason says, it’s like two minutes from the church.”

“I am very concerned for our daughter’s safety,” he said.

He meant something else, something she couldn’t understand.

“Of course, honey,” her mother said, returning to her work.

As did her father. Julia waited.

“You have two minutes,” he said. “Your father’s late and he’s speaking today.”

She leaned into the open window and kissed his cheek. He revved off, leaving her near a bike rental shop. Farther, a trail led to the Bay Bridge, whose upper trusses were shrouded in fog. She was three miles from home—but only a bit more than a third from the church.

She ran the gauntlet of eclectic tourists and less-varied locals. The latter grew, per capita, as she wound away from the water— dreadlocks, frosted spikes, loud band shirts. Lots of Zoo York. Metal. Epidermal impalement. Pungency. Skates and their dense soughing. This was what normal looked like, Julia told herself— except for where normal looked.

Their heads like camera dollies, tracking her with clinical precision as they passed.

Off Lombard she cozied into a stoop’s cove. Along the curb nearby, technicians fed wire into a truck with an impressive cross of haste and care. Past the truck, across the street, stood an Inky Blots and a Spencer’s. Again she referenced the directions, pulled from MapQuest. She looked up. Inky Blots, 431. Spencer’s, 435. Bookending 433, which was definitively not a church.

An evanescent thought moved through her, as only the deepest and most uncomfortable truths do: that, much as her mother had described men’s desire, vindication emptied itself shortly after it was won. Julia was cold in her spandex, shivering within the stoop’s cove. She hugged her stomach.

Then she saw his burnished profile, eclipsing that woman’s, walking beside him. The frosted glass door closed after them and Julia was spurned forth into the street, gull shadows flitting overhead. She made of her hand a hat’s bill, squinted through the opaque entrance, seeing another door down a short hallway. She waited outside another few minutes, peeking every so’s to ensure the coast’s clearness.

Motel? Brothel?

She crept inside, along the drab hall, held her ear to a board wood door. On the door’s brass placard was a circumscribed triangle, illuminati-like. Having a cult leader for a father was perhaps worse than a cheater. Just a few lines in she heard, “…and as Committee Leader, nothing pleases me more than to present to you Jonathan Raciti, who’s here to tell his story.”

Modest applause dwindled to rustles and restives. An amplified screech, an adjusted microphone, and her father’s voice.

“Hi, my name is Jonathan, and I’m an addict and an alcoholic.”

“Hi Jonathan.”

“I’d like to thank Miranda and Julio for advocating this. They’re two of biggest reasons I keep coming back.”

“Keep coming back, it works if you work it.”

Through the door’s fake wood and the death of certainty, she listened to a story…

“Where I was born, if you didn’t lock your door, you deserved to get your shit lifted.”

The crowd laughed nervously, nearly cloyingly.

“Luckily, before I was even playing t-ball, my pop moved us from our apartment near the Hudson, into a gablefront outside Yonkers. One Sunday my pop was out of town. My ma was talking with girlfriends on the phone, which meant I could sneak some TV time, when the doorbell rang—twice, I remember. My mother yelled at me to get it and that set off baby Danny more than the doorbell had. I opened the door to a short man in a windowpane suit, charcoal with white crossings, and tortoise shell glasses. A lot like Meyer Lansky. He asked if my pop was home. When I told him he wasn’t, Meyer said something about that being convenient, and asked to speak to my mother. ‘You can speak to me,’ I said to him. I was trying to keep my mother on the phone so I could keep watching cartoons. He told me to let him know he came by and turned away, and I caught a glimpse of something I’d never seen before outside TV or a movie: a semi Glock. On impulse, I said maybe one of the dumbest things I’ve ever said. I said, ‘What’s that?’ Meyer, he’s amused now. He peers down at me and says, ‘You know what a vig is, hm?’ I didn’t even know what a live pair of tits looked like, but I nodded. He was less than convinced, and rightly so. He crouched down, that Glock’s handle poking out his waistband. ‘Your father, he owes a little money,’ he says. ‘For what?’ I ask, and he says, ‘For taking the Chargers with eight points.’ At that point I squared up to him. ‘He’s a Giants fan.’…He stood up and said, ‘It doesn’t seem like you know what he really is, guy.’… Now I was scared and pissed off, which always turned me into a smartass, or made me more of one. I started explaining to him that the original guy—Guy Fawkes—was part of a conspiracy to blow up Parliament with gunpowder. I told him how, in the end, Guy and his boys all got caught. That they were drawn and quartered. Now, they say you can be too smart for this program. I think that applies to life in general. You think you know things. After I told my little parable about Guy Fawkes, I realized he’d use his piece if he had to. Not on me, and that was worse because of me. “I told Meyer to give me a minute, I’d go get him his money. I hightailed upstairs, soft on my feet to keep my mother focused on her friends’ gossip and whatnot. But once I got to my room, I heard her Coney accent, which could cut through a cinderblock. ‘Can I help you?’ she calls to him, and I hear him say something about, ‘That’s okay, ma’am. Your son’s been kind enough to donate a dollar to the synagogue,’ and she’s all, ‘That’s sweet,’ and whatnot, sucking on a Turkish Royal. I can still smell those. Anyway, Meyer knew what he was doing. Made a living doing it: shaking people down. I was aware of it, but what was a kid to do? I had no choice.  I packed every cent since my first allowance. Didn’t even know how much my pop owed. Just brought it down, assuming it was a sum I couldn’t count to. And when Meyer opened the knapsack, he just smirked at me like, it’s this easy for him. He tipped the brim of the hat he wasn’t wearing and whistled his way off the porch. I cowered in my room for hours before I heard my pop come up the stairs, then his voice, just beyond my door: ‘Office. Now.’ Those were very bad words. Then again, the things I’d gleaned about his dealings earlier that day, they granted me some sort of amnesty. Plus, my mother was upstairs putting my sister down, and he couldn’t kill me with witnesses in the house. In his office he was pointing at his chair. He would’ve whupped me if he’d found even the imprint of my ass in that chair. Now I realized this had less to do with the seat than what I could find out about him while sitting in it, and this pissed me. The way he talked about his job, he’d always called it ‘human resources,’ never a company, agency, institution. Still, I sat in the damn chair. ‘You gave away two large, Jon. Two grand,’ he said. ‘Is that what a man does? Hands over his livelihood?’ I tell him he had a gun, and he’s worried about my allowance money? He said to me, ‘Look, Junior, if you’re a sailor, you’re tryin to get home, but the wind don’t change, what do you do, do you throw yourself overboard? No, you wait for the fuckin wind to change back.’ As a kid, I felt like the less others knew about you, the more power you had. Maybe my pop felt the same way. I couldn’t understand what me being put in danger had to do with sailing, so I got up, and I slammed the office door in his face. In our family—to disrespect your father like that? But I didn’t care. I went to my friend Christian’s and played Atari. His mom made us grilled cheeses. It was nice. One of my last memories of normality. Later that night I snuck back into the house, and my pop was waiting by the fire. For the second time that day, he requested that I sit, on the couch this time. He rolled up his sleeves and paced. Then he surprised me. He said it wasn’t the world that made me who I was. I did.’ At that moment, in my kid’s brain, I was wondering what my mother knew about what he did, and I just got angry again. I didn’t think about what he was telling me. I just asked him, straight up, ‘What do you do?’ I saw him caught between explanations. ‘It’s a way of living, of knowing how to survive,’ he said, and just then, my ma appeared at the bottom of the stairs in her nightgown, ready for bed. ‘Danielle’s out,’ was all she said, and went back upstairs. She knew. A few years later, my pop and I were watching The Godfather, which to my pop was a documentary. Sounds cliché, but that’s the thing, I’d try to ruin it for him. I remember watching Sonny get word about his sister getting beat up by her husband again. You know how Sonny races over in a rage, but the tollbooth’s staked out by Barzini’s henchmen. I’d been drinking quite a bit—toleration juice—but I remember saying something like, ‘Had there been EZ-pass, Sonny would still be with us.’ My pop just told me to get my feet off the table and put his beer there. I thought he was just displacing my smartassness, but after setting his beer, he paused the movie, right as Sonny was getting laced up. Maybe it was the sight of a son’s death. I’d graduated that morning. My mother had come with Danny, who was a stranger to me even then. My pop was under house arrest so that anklet kept him from the ceremony. Still, maybe he was sorry to have missed it on some level. Maybe it was its own rite of passage. I’m still not sure why he chose this moment, but either way, he asked me if I remembered that day, giving away all my money, and what he’d said about the sailor. His eyes were on the movie. I thought for a moment, more to seem like I was trying to remember than actually remembering. He said it was the principle of it, that I’d been taken, and I begrudged him that. He was drunk. Or he was getting there, the happy rising action. He was that gleam-to-mean type. Anyway, there would be no better time to ask: I asked him what happened to the collector—to Meyer Lansky—and he just shrugged and flicked his head toward the TV, which was still paused on Sonny’s last breaths. I was gut-checked, like a boxer taking a haymaker. I could no longer pretend what he was—what I was. He pressed play, releasing Sonny from his suffering. Then he said to me, ‘What you don’t see in the movies, is how they shit themselves.’ He and my ma had split, so we were watching the movie in his bachelor pad in the city, a closet that cost a million bucks. For my ma’s sake, it was just pizza, two-liter Coke, bottle of Jack. But he’d already shown me around, introduced me to his guys. He wasn’t a conscript anymore, but full-connected. Crew to his name—guys collecting for him now, his own little Meyers. Guys paying him protection. Goombahs coming in and out. Stories about stupid conversations with John Gotti, like he was Bill fucking Clinton. The show-and-tell was a proposition. He’d remind me I was good with numbers. Send me off with uncomfortably thick wads of cash, his way of communicating what I could have. When the pressure really started building, I started using, half to cope but half to spite him. Kinda like treating a girl like shit to get her to dump you. Ran away upstate, where the meth was cheap and plenty. He’d still send guys to check on me where I was squatting in Rochester, doing all the standard shit to support my habit. But he’d wait till I begged. His guys’d come in kicking the other squatters, berating me for a bit, then leave me with a twenty, just enough to cop something to come off the crank. Like he wanted me back but had to humiliate me first…One day one of his guys tried to prove a point and went too far. You would’ve though this guy was on speed. A fuckin zealot. He was furious, screaming about how we could’ve been brothers, how I was throwing everything away. All the while I’m on the nod—nothing, just nothing, glaze over my eyes, you know. Not that it would’ve worked, but he couldn’t beat up his boss’s son. He could come up there and berate me, tell me I was a piece of shit, but he couldn’t touch me. So he found the nearest junkie and just choked him out. Right there in front of me, and I did nothing—except get clean, the very next day…First meeting I went to, I heard about Mikey, found dead after two years sober… We’d split a bag and I hadn’t even gotten his name…I wasn’t planning on telling that story…Sorry, everyone…Anyway, this is not when I stopped being an addict. There’s never a singular event that drives one to drink and smoke glass and shoot up for three years, and there isn’t one that ends it. But there are signs—or, in my case, explicit acts. Addiction is in my blood. It’s in my pop’s, and it’s in mine. It’s…I’m sorry. Thank you very much.”

The audience’s response—“Thank you, Jonathan”—knocked Julia back to presence, staggering from the door. The folded map slipped from her fingers. The rattled knob—the door opening. She was stuck in mental mud. She watched him lean down to drink, slurping the fountain’s limpid stream, lips gleaming as he straightened and saw her. During his pause his eyes shifted, from singular shock to plenary hurt, and he went to her, his arms two bulky snakes, eerily restrictive. Her understanding caught in this vise, she couldn’t help but think, I don’t know who you are.

============

>> Katie: Oof. That one hits home right now.

>> Brian: That was very strange to read.

>> Katie: Yeah, it was really good, though. I'm glad you shared that. It was really cool. There's a cool moment happening here.

>> Brian: Yeah,

>> Katie: And, you know what's really weird? I was thinking about how I wanted to do the Italian accents, but just couldn't pull it off but I was just like fuck it. You guys can imagine it when you read it (laughter)

>> Katie: You have to practice those for the audiobook.

>> Brian: I do. I really do.

>> Katie: Well, we're coming to a close, but your book's coming out Sunday.

>> Brian: Yeah, that's crazy!

>> Katie: Getting published, you just read it out of its book form and it will be available to the whole wide world on Sunday.

>> Brian: Very strange. Very cool. Very excited

>> Katie: I'm very excited for you and for us and for Animal Riot and for everything. And I'm really proud of you for sharing today and being vulnerable. I'm sure there's somebody out there who really appreciates it, too.

>> Brian: Yeah, I hope so. But I also want to add on a brighter note. Not a brighter note, but a different note. I guess my book is coming out, but I'm really excited for the other books we have coming out to like David's (Anthropica), Annie's, yours.

>> Katie: One day

>> Brian: There's a children's book we're working on.

>> Katie: Yeah

>> Brian: And we're still, you know, going through the slush pile looking for the next one, you know?

>> Katie: Yeah. So if you got a manuscript, send it to us. We'd love to read it

>> Brian: I'm super excited about all that. David's book is just a fucking masterpiece. Yeah, it's gonna be awesome. He's gonna be on the podcast soon.

>> Katie: But right now you can preorder Emerald City at animalriotpress.com and on Sunday, you can but it through the monolith that is Amazon. The biggest bookstore there is.

>> Brian: We're not totally clean. (laughter)

>> Katie: Okay that’s it for today’s episode. If you like what you heard, please subscribe and review on whichever platform you’re listening. You can get in touch with us on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram at @AnimalRiotPress, or through our website animalriotpress.com. This has been the 33rd episode of the Animal Riot Podcast with me your host, Katie Rainey, and your regular host resuming his duties, Brian Birnbaum. You can preorder Brian’s Emerald City right now at animalriotpress.com, or get it Sunday through Amazon and shipped to you. Our transcripts for our Deaf and Hard of Hearing Animals are provided by Jon Kay, this episode was edited by our podcast assistant Dylan Thomas, and we're produced by… Do you want to say it?

>> Brian: We are produced by Katie Rainey, without whom we would be merely two of Shakespeare’s thousand monkeys banging on a typewriter.