And it’s been a really interesting sort of psychological experiment on myself, really to think about when they interact with me. Are they interacting with 40-year-old mother of two? Are they interacting with the sullen 16-year-old me, or are they thinking about me as a child? Are they thinking about me and my parents? I think about those different webs a lot. And that’s really a lot of what the book is about, is the ways in which we’re all really watching each other get older. And the ways in which we either allow — or don’t allow — each other to grow or change, and what sort of feelings get all tied up in that.

On family and connection

I mean, the family in this book — they are in and out of each other’s lives, and react to each other in the ways that we all do, I think, with our with our families. I mean, I don’t I don’t know about anyone else, but when my mother comes over to our house, she and my husband immediately start sort of annoying each other and teasing each other. And it’s all of those things that you would normally complain about. And my book is full of those things with this family.

Like right now, my husband said to me yesterday, he said, “I just wish your mom could come over and annoy me.” I think it’s what we’re all missing. You know, not the perfect shiny bits, but like, why does my mom just bring me bags of loose batteries? I don’t know. I mean, I probably need them?

And that kind of stuff, which I always make fun of her for, but is so loving … I think that this moment really does bring up all those big feelings about family and about how we relate to the people we love the most, and who we know the best … You know, it’s a funny kind of microscope where we’re all under right now.

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