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♪ Book Lust theme song ♪

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-Hello and welcome to Book Lust.

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I'm Nancy Pearl.

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My guest today is Deb
Olin Unferth, and we'll

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be talking about her
brand new novel, “”Earth 7”.”

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Deb, thank you so much
for being on the show.

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-Thank you so much for having me.

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It's really a delight.

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-So the blurb on the front of
the book, on the cover, says,

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“Like no other book you've ever
read by a writer like no other.”

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And that's from Elizabeth
McCracken, who is not

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only a friend of mine,
but one of my favorite

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writers as well, for the kind
of quirkiness that you and I

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think she share.

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Is that fair?

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The quirkiness?

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-I mean, I don't know if I would

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use the word quirky to
describe either of our work.

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Um, I feel like maybe I'm just,
I would, I guess I would ask you

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what, what, what does
that word mean to you?

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To me, it feels very young.

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It feels like sort of like young

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adult or something, which there
are people who, there are

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kids in my life who
are reading this book.

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But that wasn't just,
you know, that wasn't

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the intended audience.

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-No, no, absolutely not.

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No, to me it means

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that it uses language and plot
in an unexpected kind of way.

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And I'm thinking especially
of Elizabeth's first

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collection of short
stories, "Here's Your Hat,

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What's Your Hurry?"

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Which I think pretty much in
my mind defines that quality.

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And I think what's so
lovely about “”Earth 7”,”

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you're not in a
world that you know,

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but you're in a world
that's awfully familiar.

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and that difference between
the two is, I think, where,

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in my mind, quirkiness enters.

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-Yeah, that's really interesting.

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I am a huge fan of
Elizabeth's work as well.

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I love that book so much.

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I guess I love all of her books.

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I really love of “A
Long Game,” which

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just came out this year,
her book about writing.

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And yeah, I guess I feel
like it's it is definitely

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true that the way that
both she and I write is

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we create these kind of
less familiar scenarios;

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we're not going for hard
realism. Um, we're trying

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to yeah we're just but I
I mean, actually, I don't

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know why I'm trying to
speak for Elizabeth.

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I can really only
speak for my own.

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-Yeah, that's fine.

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But I think I am.

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Yeah, I think I've never really
been a fully realist writer,

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even though this is my first
work of speculative fiction.

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I did have my last book, 
“Barn 8,”

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Um, I had in that
book, I started going,

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just finding myself
catapulting into the future

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in lots of strange ways.

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And it was so exciting and
interesting to do that, that

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I knew when I was writing
them that my next book was

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going to be speculative.

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Um, but I mean the other word the
other thing that comes to mind

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when I listen to you talk about
quirkiness is that I I do think

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that both Elizabeth and I like
to feel free to move into

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to the surreal anytime we want.

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So both of us kind of,
there's like hyper

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real elements in our books.

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-Yeah, I call, to me, I mean,
I've always called that

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kind of elastic realism,

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that it's kind of stretches
the definition of what's real.

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When you
first thought of

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“Earth 7” and you talked to
your agent or whatever, how

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did you describe the book?

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-It took me a long time
to write this book, even

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though it's so short.

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I think it's maybe
my shortest book.

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But I was, yeah, I didn't
know how to talk about it for

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a long time because I was
being inspired to write it

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by the many different kinds
of technological band-aids

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that we are encountering
that are supposed to save

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our world or protect us.

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Things like things that
protect against global

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warming and stuff.

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So, um, you know, I opened

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the book with a description
of the sky being full

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of sulfur.

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And that came from
this idea of, um,

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shooting sulfur in this
idea that supposedly we're

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going to try is shooting
sulfur and precious

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precious metals into the sky
to try to refract the sunlight

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away from the earth.

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And it was, it was
things like that,

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crazy ideas that
I was imagining.

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Um, and, you know,
just reading about,

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and then just letting
myself think about it.

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Um, so I really love your
idea of your, what you said

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about elastic fiction or
elastic realism because

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it's kind of what I was
participating in in that

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time so I kept thinking oh
I'm writing eco-fiction

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or I'm writing um some
kind of um speculative

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fiction about the end of the
world was another thing that I

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kept telling people and
thinking about and stuff.

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But then the characters
sort of took over

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the story and then it became
me describing it as a love

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story about the world
and about a group of

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people who are trying to
figure out if there's

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anything that they can
salvage from earth.

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And the word salvage means

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different things to different
people in the book,

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and they're trying
to figure that out.

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-Kind of a love story at
the end of the world

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is how I sort of
thought about it.

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And where did those
characters-- I mean, the two--

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So this has a
wonderfully complex

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mother-daughter relationship,
which I have to say made

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me cry and I'm not a crier
I mean it was so it was so

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complex that you just wanted
just wanted them to to be

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together and you know you know --
it really moved me let me.

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Just say let me put it that way.
Um, so where did these these

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all these characters these
women these fascinating

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women, and I think three of
them, the mother and the

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two two young women where where
did they come from?

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-Yeah, so glad to know that they
that that relationship

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touched you. Um, I so the
first scenes of the book

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take place where the
mother, there's a mother

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character who has brought
her daughter under the

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ocean to live in a pod.

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And so they're living in
this pod and the daughter

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doesn't want to be there.

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She doesn't like it.

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She's trying to figure out

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how to escape.

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And so the first couple chapters

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chapters of the book are
her just figuring out

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how to escape and then
pretty early in the book

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she does escape. But
what's really funny is

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that I that was the first
chapters I rewrote them

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several times but that
basically was the plot and

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I wrote it in 2019 at the
end of 2019 just before

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before “Barn 8” came out.

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And then everybody
was, so many people

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have said to me, “Oh, like
the beginning feels like the

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pandemic.” And, and I kept
thinking, I wonder if,

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if somehow my, my writing
was forecasting the future

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and did I cause the pandemic?

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I mean, I had all these
ridiculous ideas,

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but yeah, it was very
strange how it got that way.

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I feel like the character who
I could talk the most clearly

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about how she came to
be would be Melanie,

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who is um she is she and
Dylan, who's the daughter,

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fall in love. But early
in the book um people

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think she's a robot
because she's had so much

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plastic surgery and lasers
and other things like

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like that done to her
that she just, she looks

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and acts like a robot.

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Like she clicks,
she moves strange.

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And at one point someone
compares her skin to a yoga mat.

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And I always thought like
maybe, like I kept switching

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out yoga mat and one of
those exercise balls

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or something like that.

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And she, I live in Austin.

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there's a lot of plastic
surgeons here and a lot

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of that kind of, um, I
mean, I guess in California

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too, there's a lot of it.

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And I'm getting
older and I had

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to sort of have this moment with
myself where I had to decide,

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am I going to do weird
things to my face?

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And, um, I decided, no,
I'm not, I'm not going to.

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So I'm just letting all the
age come in and that's fine.

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But I had this moment
where I was in California,

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I was in, I was in

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sitting on a bench with
a friend, and this

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woman was walking by us.

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And as she approached, she
was way older, at least

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20 years older than me.

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But she looked amazing.

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Like, you could tell she'd
had so much work done.

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And I turned to my friend, and
I was about to say something

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maybe a little snarky,
which is not very nice.

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But my friend who
lives in LA said,

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“She looks expensive.”

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And this voice sounds
like, “Wow, she does look

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expensive. She looks
great, actually.”

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And it was that, that was
the moment that Melanie

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arrived in my mind as this just
really expensive, powerful

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woman and I mean I
guess the other thing that I'll

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say about it is that I feel like
when I was growing up there

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were not a lot of women role
models they're just they're just

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there weren't a lot of women
superheroes and heroes of movies

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and we had we had Wonder Woman, 
but not a lot else.

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And now they're
everywhere and it's

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pretty exciting and they're
tough and they're cool

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and they're beautiful.

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And their faces a
lot of the time look a

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little plasticky.

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And I am sad that I
didn't grow up with that

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kind of model.

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And I thought, I'm just
going to put someone

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like that right into my book.

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So those things combined is
how I arrived with Melanie.

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-It does sort of make
sense in our current

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environment with influencers.

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You could sort of see how
Melanie, the influencer, gets

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to that point where people,
as you said, believe that

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she's a robot because of the
way she looks and moves.

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And then she, in the course of
the book, becomes all too human.

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Well, how come the
last two of your books

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have a number in them?

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In the title, I mean, sorry.

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-Yeah yeah it's yeah the
last one was “Barn 8” and

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this one is “Earth 7.”
It's possible that I might

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be doing a sort of a countdown,
like a an eco fiction countdown.

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I do not believe that I
will get to zero, which would

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be the end goal because it takes
me so long to write a book.

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But I don't think that matters.

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At first I thought,
does that matter?

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And my editor was was
like well you could

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write you could write a
book like “Apartment 432”

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[laughter]

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But maybe
instead it's like I am

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doing the countdown of the
part of time the the swath

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of time that I live in
or that I'm writing in.

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I'm just recording that
piece, and I'm not going

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to make it to zero, but
neither are we by the

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time I get to the end of
my life, so hopefully.

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But it is definitely a nod
to this apocalyptic feeling

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that I've been in
the air for a while.

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-Well, that feeling that you
have or concern that you have

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that you might not get to go
all the way down to like one.

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It reminds me of Sue Grafton,
the mystery writer who started,

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who did the whole
alphabet, “A is for Alibi,”

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and then got all the way to Z
with her series of mysteries.

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-Wow, that's so impressive.

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I will definitely never make it.

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-What's the hardest part for
you about writing fiction?

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Is it finding a plot or
is that easy for you?

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-Maybe it's the middle part
because I usually write

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the ending really early
and I write the beginning

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00:14:22,595 --> 00:14:27,666
really early and then I have
to somehow work my way in.

241
00:14:27,666 --> 00:14:34,039
And it's that middle part
that's so hard for me, and

242
00:14:34,039 --> 00:14:39,178
maybe it's also just self-doubt,
like I'm always doubting

243
00:14:39,178 --> 00:14:41,914
what's on the page and
rewriting everything

244
00:14:41,914 --> 00:14:46,285
and so maybe if
I had less of that.

245
00:14:46,285 --> 00:14:48,787
But I also feel
like self doubt is

246
00:14:48,787 --> 00:14:50,256
a gift for a writer.

247
00:14:50,256 --> 00:14:52,291
I don't want to squash that

248
00:14:52,291 --> 00:14:55,794
too much, because I know
that my books have gotten

249
00:14:55,794 --> 00:14:59,298
better as a result of having
doubted what's on the

250
00:14:59,298 --> 00:15:00,399
the page.

251
00:15:02,201 --> 00:15:09,575
I believe in being someone who
write, doesn't publish a book

252
00:15:09,575 --> 00:15:10,309
every two years.

253
00:15:10,309 --> 00:15:13,979
Like I, I, I think that that's

254
00:15:13,979 --> 00:15:18,350
totally a great way to
live that, because all my

255
00:15:18,350 --> 00:15:19,852
my books have so much research.

256
00:15:19,852 --> 00:15:21,787
I know you probably
can't even tell that

257
00:15:21,787 --> 00:15:25,991
there's that much research, but,
but I use research not only

258
00:15:25,991 --> 00:15:31,096
as, um, to fill stuff in, um,
about what I'm to know what I'm

259
00:15:31,096 --> 00:15:33,899
talking about, but I, I
also use it as inspiration.

260
00:15:33,899 --> 00:15:37,469
So like in this book, I
read five different books

261
00:15:37,469 --> 00:15:44,009
about sand, nonfiction about
sand, and that inspired such big

262
00:15:44,009 --> 00:15:49,949
swaths of the book and really
helped me kind of spiritually

263
00:15:49,949 --> 00:15:52,718
think about what the
book was going to be.

264
00:15:52,718 --> 00:15:56,889
-Right. So I would
say the things that

265
00:15:56,889 --> 00:16:00,159
are hard are time, the mind.

266
00:16:02,027 --> 00:16:04,163
[laughter]

267
00:16:04,163 --> 00:16:09,201
-Time, mind, the middle six you
could do for your next for the

268
00:16:09,201 --> 00:16:13,439
for the for the next book. 
Are there really five

269
00:16:13,439 --> 00:16:15,674
nonfiction books about sand?

270
00:16:15,674 --> 00:16:16,875
I mean, I'm impressed.

271
00:16:17,977 --> 00:16:19,311
-Yeah, and they're all different.

272
00:16:19,311 --> 00:16:26,352
I mean, one, my favorite
one is a geology book that

273
00:16:26,352 --> 00:16:32,891
talks about the, like,
what is sand made up of?

274
00:16:32,891 --> 00:16:36,695
And it talks about like the
fam, the families of sand.

275
00:16:36,695 --> 00:16:42,234
And then there's another
book that is kind of the,

276
00:16:42,234 --> 00:16:45,104
the geometry of sand,
like sand dunes and how

277
00:16:45,104 --> 00:16:47,673
they move across and how
they move across the

278
00:16:47,673 --> 00:16:50,476
planet. Like they,
they sweep West toward

279
00:16:50,476 --> 00:16:55,481
the sun and they grow
babies behind them and

280
00:16:55,481 --> 00:16:57,182
follow them and stuff.

281
00:16:57,182 --> 00:17:00,085
And there's, and
that, that one is

282
00:17:00,085 --> 00:17:03,889
pretty, pretty tough reading,
but it's really good.

283
00:17:03,889 --> 00:17:07,092
There's another one that's
just about sand

284
00:17:07,092 --> 00:17:10,896
and the way the different
uses that we have of sand.

285
00:17:10,896 --> 00:17:15,034
Like, you know, we, our
roads are made out of sand.

286
00:17:15,034 --> 00:17:16,301
This, this room is all

287
00:17:16,301 --> 00:17:17,136
made out of sand.

288
00:17:17,136 --> 00:17:23,675
The cement and windows and
glass are made out of sand.

289
00:17:23,675 --> 00:17:29,014
And, you know, toothpaste
has sand in it.

290
00:17:29,014 --> 00:17:32,518
And microchips are
made out of sand.

291
00:17:32,518 --> 00:17:34,953
And glue has sand in it.

292
00:17:34,953 --> 00:17:37,790
I mean, you know, basically
our entire civilization

293
00:17:37,790 --> 00:17:38,757
is made of sand.

294
00:17:38,757 --> 00:17:40,626
[laughter]

295
00:17:40,893 --> 00:17:46,231
-I mean, the part about the sand
dunes, though, that was part,

296
00:17:46,231 --> 00:17:53,939
that found its way into the book
in a beautifully fitting way,

297
00:17:53,939 --> 00:17:58,877
I think, in the book, right?

298
00:17:58,877 --> 00:17:59,812
-Oh, yeah.

299
00:17:59,812 --> 00:18:04,349
Yeah, there's, yeah, they,
in the book, a lot of

300
00:18:04,349 --> 00:18:06,585
the planet is now sand.

301
00:18:06,585 --> 00:18:07,086
And

302
00:18:08,754 --> 00:18:11,190
Melanie and Dylan are
living in the dunes.

303
00:18:12,091 --> 00:18:17,863
-Who do you, who do you, who
do you read for pleasure?

304
00:18:17,863 --> 00:18:19,731
-Well, Elizabeth McCracken is.

305
00:18:19,731 --> 00:18:21,366
-Yes, right.

306
00:18:21,366 --> 00:18:26,605
-I think that for this book, I
read a lot of science fiction.

307
00:18:28,073 --> 00:18:30,776
I read like Ballard,
“The Drowned World” was

308
00:18:30,776 --> 00:18:32,411
really exciting to read.

309
00:18:32,411 --> 00:18:35,013
Of course, I read a
lot of Octavia Butler.

310
00:18:35,013 --> 00:18:37,850
I read, let's see what else.

311
00:18:37,850 --> 00:18:42,554
I read a lot of Ursula Le Guin.

312
00:18:42,554 --> 00:18:47,259
I don't usually read a lot
of science fiction but

313
00:18:47,259 --> 00:18:51,630
but I I have in the
last few years, I've read a

314
00:18:51,630 --> 00:18:54,933
ton. Just because I was
trying to just figure out

315
00:18:54,933 --> 00:18:57,803
what is science fiction?
I mean I grew up kind

316
00:18:57,803 --> 00:19:00,606
reading it, but it's
been so many years.

317
00:19:00,606 --> 00:19:02,975
I like to read a
lot of nonfiction,

318
00:19:02,975 --> 00:19:05,511
like all those books about sand.

319
00:19:05,511 --> 00:19:09,848
I also read a book about
waves, not water waves,

320
00:19:09,848 --> 00:19:12,251
but like string theory and...

321
00:19:13,519 --> 00:19:15,053
-Sound waves.

322
00:19:15,053 --> 00:19:19,024
-Sound waves,
radioactive waves, just,

323
00:19:19,024 --> 00:19:24,129
and that's, that also finds
its way into the book.

324
00:19:25,597 --> 00:19:26,798
Yeah, I like to read.

325
00:19:26,798 --> 00:19:28,567
Yeah, that kind of thing a lot.

326
00:19:28,567 --> 00:19:29,968
I like to expand my mind.

327
00:19:29,968 --> 00:19:32,704
I really, there's
a book by Peter

328
00:19:32,704 --> 00:19:38,010
Godfrey Smith about octopuses
that had a huge influence

329
00:19:38,010 --> 00:19:40,279
on me that I really love.

330
00:19:40,279 --> 00:19:43,715
There's also, I think I
opened the book with a quote

331
00:19:43,715 --> 00:19:46,752
from Tanya Tagaq, who's
an improvisational throat

332
00:19:46,752 --> 00:19:49,221
singer from the high Arctic.

333
00:19:49,221 --> 00:19:54,960
She's from an Inuit village
and that was incredibly

334
00:19:54,960 --> 00:19:59,164
inspiring to me just her
sort of different way

335
00:19:59,164 --> 00:20:03,202
of thinking about water and
sky and ice and substance.

336
00:20:04,436 --> 00:20:07,940
Really opened my mind. 
I really love reading books

337
00:20:07,940 --> 00:20:10,142
that just kind of open my mind

338
00:20:11,343 --> 00:20:16,181
I also...I try to also read
the books that everybody's

339
00:20:16,181 --> 00:20:22,154
reading, but I don't feel
as I never feel like it's as

340
00:20:22,154 --> 00:20:25,057
necessary to read the books
that everyone's reading because...

341
00:20:25,057 --> 00:20:28,894
Because I'm trying to
do something else.

342
00:20:28,894 --> 00:20:32,130
You know, I want my work to be
different from everyone else.

343
00:20:32,130 --> 00:20:33,098
-Right, right.

344
00:20:33,098 --> 00:20:36,101
Well, I feel the same way
about it's not necessary

345
00:20:36,101 --> 00:20:39,204
for me to read the books
that everybody's reading.

346
00:20:40,272 --> 00:20:44,710
Partly because I think it's
so much fun to find a book

347
00:20:44,710 --> 00:20:51,016
that nobody will find
unless I can talk about it

348
00:20:51,016 --> 00:20:53,852
or interview the author
or something like that.

349
00:20:53,852 --> 00:20:57,155
Not that nobody would find,
not that I mean nobody

350
00:20:57,155 --> 00:20:58,624
would find “Earth 7”.

351
00:20:58,624 --> 00:20:59,691
I mean, I didn't mean that.

352
00:20:59,691 --> 00:21:03,228
I meant that it's just
always a pleasure for me

353
00:21:03,228 --> 00:21:07,199
to talk about books that
aren't on the bestseller list

354
00:21:07,199 --> 00:21:11,370
and that have that little,
well, to go back to quirkiness,

355
00:21:11,370 --> 00:21:15,641
that have that little quirk,
a way of looking at the world

356
00:21:15,641 --> 00:21:18,710
that I just so appreciate.

357
00:21:18,710 --> 00:21:20,746
-That's such, I love
the way you put that.

358
00:21:20,746 --> 00:21:22,648
Yeah, I definitely
didn't take it that way.

359
00:21:22,648 --> 00:21:25,250
I was like, “like you,
but no one's reading.”

360
00:21:25,250 --> 00:21:27,386
I did not take it
that way at all.

361
00:21:27,386 --> 00:21:31,256
And, but no, I mean, I know
my work is a little weird.

362
00:21:31,256 --> 00:21:35,460
It's like, it's a little
strange and I, I go for that.

363
00:21:35,460 --> 00:21:36,628
I want that.

364
00:21:36,628 --> 00:21:39,765
-Yeah. I, I, yeah,
I think, I mean,

365
00:21:39,765 --> 00:21:43,735
what a pleasure it is to
what a pleasure it was

366
00:21:43,735 --> 00:21:47,606
for me to open your book,
and I had read “Barn 8.”

367
00:21:47,606 --> 00:21:49,241
And so I was excited.

368
00:21:49,241 --> 00:21:53,278
I was excited to see a
new book that you had.

369
00:21:53,278 --> 00:21:57,816
And to open your book and
to just, I mean, to fall

370
00:21:57,816 --> 00:22:02,721
into the hands of such a
capable, beautiful writer

371
00:22:02,721 --> 00:22:04,956
and these characters.

372
00:22:06,825 --> 00:22:10,295
Yeah, it was just a great,
great, great experience.

373
00:22:10,295 --> 00:22:13,799
And I've been going through a
period of not finding a lot of

374
00:22:13,799 --> 00:22:16,468
stuff that I'm enjoying at all.

375
00:22:16,468 --> 00:22:21,340
So your book really, I felt
like, well, this is hyperbolic,

376
00:22:21,340 --> 00:22:23,208
but it kind of saved me.

377
00:22:23,208 --> 00:22:26,812
So I really appreciate that.

378
00:22:26,812 --> 00:22:27,546
-Thank you.

379
00:22:27,546 --> 00:22:28,580
That's so nice.

380
00:22:28,580 --> 00:22:30,682
That's such a nice thing to say.

381
00:22:30,682 --> 00:22:34,519
-Well, thank you for
joining me on the show.

382
00:22:34,519 --> 00:22:38,790
And I look forward to
whatever six, five, four,

383
00:22:38,790 --> 00:22:39,791
three are.

384
00:22:39,791 --> 00:22:44,062
And good luck with the
middle of your next book,

385
00:22:44,062 --> 00:22:47,466
because I definitely
want to read it.

386
00:22:47,466 --> 00:22:49,334
-Thank you so much.

387
00:22:49,334 --> 00:22:50,235
-Thank you.

388
00:22:50,669 --> 00:23:06,284
♪ Book Lust theme song ♪