Q: Can you share your inspiration for the title Made for You and Me?
A: That’s such a good question! Well, I had a verse of the song “This Land Is Made for You and Me” opening the second section of the book when everything starts to fall apart for Dan and me in Los Angeles. (Note, this is basically the same song as “This Land Is Your Land,” but it is the earliest version Guthrie wrote on a piece of paper, which I was able to find a facsimile of, and some of the words are different—I preferred this early draft for my book.) Originally, the book was called The Long Way Home for the Tom Waits song in the book. Then, all of a sudden, I realized that I needed to put the whole Guthrie song at the end of the book—I needed it to inspire people that America is truly made for all of us, even when times are tough. And once that happened it was as if the words “Made for You and Me” were glaring out at me. I didn’t quite commit, though, until my editor told me that she was worried “The Long Way Home” wasn’t catchy enough. I got on the phone with my mother, as I’m apt to do in moments like this, and she said, totally on her own, “How about Made for You and Me?” I knew in that instant that that was the right title.
Q: In retrospect, what would you change about your time in California and your journey home, including the first few months in your mother’s house?
A: Nothing. Well, not nothing. Ellison would not die. Or if she were to die, it would not have been so cruel; we would have been somewhere solid—maybe home at my mom’s. To this day, I know she wanted to come with us. She was trying to hang on for that. Anyway, I still go back to that time and it hurts. I can’t read that section of the book—I skip it.
But all of what came to pass needed to happen, somehow. I know that. I don’t know all the reasons, but I feel deeply that that part of my life was just a period in my larger journey through the world. Also, it made Dan and me so close; we went through this very hard time together and we will never forget it.
Q: Why do you think so many listeners connected with your “Diary of a Recession” audio diaries on NPR’s Weekend Edition? Which feedback from listeners has affected you most?
A: I think people connected because I was saying out loud and in such a human way what so many of us were feeling—I was giving voice to the heartache that so many Americans were too ashamed to utter out loud.
I wish I could say that the negative and mean feedback didn’t affect me at all. But it did. And it really hurt Dan. It was just so shocking—we never assumed we’d get that much attention.
That said, what warms my heart daily is remembering all those lovely, kind Americans who reached out to us. Americans are good people—we just forget, sometimes, how united and kind we are if we watch the polarizing talk shows and pay attention to the politics that divide rather than unite. But when I read all those notes from people across this beautiful country, well, it gave me a faith in the goodness of American people that I’d never quite experienced before.
Q: Did you decide on any limitations about the intimacy and details in your book? What sort of things did you leave out and why?
A: This is a great question. Writers always have to make some of these choices. You know, the part about my son’s birth was much longer. For instance, in an early draft, I told how the morning before I went into labor, I woke up wanting to make love with my husband. I also wrote about how, that morning, I videotaped Dan, Hopper, Ellison, and me and how we slept in the bed like we were “shipwrecked”—thrown all over the bed in a pile together. I knew intuitively our lives were about to change with a new baby. I didn’t know, though, how much everything else would change or that we’d lose Ellison. I have not yet been able to go back and watch that video—mostly, I think, because there was a hopefulness that morning and a belief that things were on track, and in a few short weeks we were devastated.
Anyway, the section didn’t work that well in the context of the story. There were too many details that took us out of the momentum of the book, so I cut much of it. But there were things I loved and that were painful to let go—how could they not be? It was the most important day of my life!
Another thing I changed was my son’s name. This was a big decision for me. But I felt very strongly that I wanted to distance him a bit from the book—not just for the immediate future but for his future sense of self. Also, the world is so crazy that it made me nervous that just anyone might know his name.
Other than that, I really tried to write from the heart and to be kind. If I wrote from a place of compassion, then I really had to disguise less. So that’s what I did.
