Becoming a USA Today Bestseller at Seventy with Barbara Conrey

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Kathleen Basi [: 00:00:00

Welcome to Author Express. Thanks for checking us out. This is the podcast where you give us 15 minutes of your time, and we give you a chance to hear the voice behind the pages and get to know some of your favorite writers in a new light. I'm one of your hosts, Kathleen Basi. I'm an award-winning musical composer, a feature writer, essayist, and, of course, storyteller. Let me tell you a little bit about today's guest.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:00:23

Barbara Conrey's debut, Nowhere Near Goodbye was published when she was 70, and it became a USA Today bestseller. She considers herself a late bloomer. New York Times bestselling author Carolyn Levitt said of Nowhere Near Goodbye that it is about the past versus the present, the desperate needs of a family against the desperate needs of work and secrets that could derail everything. Conrey's beautifully written novel probes the choices we make and the choices we regret, and she does it with grace and a plum. Welcome to Author Express.

Barbara Conrey [: 00:00:54

Thank you so much for having me. I'm super glad to be here.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:00:58

Yeah, it's great to have you, Barbara. So, we're going to start today by asking the question we ask everyone, which is, tell me the most interesting thing about where you are from.

Barbara Conrey [: 00:01:08

Okay, well, I'm actually going to pick where I'm really from in the very beginning, which is Chicago, Illinois, which is where we just were last week. And what's interesting about that is that my grandfather owned a candy factory in Chicago, very small, and at the time, he sold sugar to Al Capone.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:01:32

Whoa. Sugar for making his various illicit bootleg?

Barbara Conrey [: 00:01:37

Yes, because this was during prohibition. And my grandmother and this is actually, it was in my first book. I'm not sure whether it got taken out or not, but I don't remember anymore. But my grandmother was very unhappy about that. And his response to that was, it's sugar. I need sugar to make candy. Whatever Al Capone needs sugar for, I don't know, and I don't need to know. But he's buying my sugar. So, yeah. So, he would buy extra sugar, lots of extra sugar, and he would sell it to Al Capone.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:02:12

Oh, my goodness. I think you might have just won the award for the most interesting thing ever shared on this. That is so interesting. Yes. Just to set the stage for everyone she mentioned last week in Chicago, we're recording this at the end of September, right after the 10th anniversary of the Women's Fiction Writers Association, and we had our first conference in Chicago. So, we were all there. Yes. And Chicago is a great town. What part of Chicago did you grow up in?

Barbara Conrey [: 00:02:40

I was in a suburb called Berwin at the time. I'm not even sure if Berwin is still around. I remember getting lost many times. I moved when I was, I think, 8. So, other than last week, I haven't been back to Chicago since I was 16.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:02:59

Wow. That’s a long time.

Barbara Conrey [: 00:03:00

And that was a year or two ago, right? Quite a few years ago.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:03:05

So, let's think back to, do you have siblings in your family?

Barbara Conrey [: 00:03:09

I did. My brother passed away.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:03:12

Okay. Can you tell us something about, what if he were here and we could ask him about you? How would he describe you?

Barbara Conrey [: 00:03:20

That's a great question. We argued a lot as young siblings. At that time, little children were really left to their own devices. There weren't all the rules, and there weren’t the helicopter parents. So, my brother and I squabbled. But as we got older, we stopped and we had many of the same interests. Like, we both love antiques, and so it was interesting. But I would say he would probably remember the squabbling the most.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:03:53

Yeah, I squabbled a lot with my sisters, so I would totally believe that. And he would always say he was right. And you would always say you were right, I'm sure.

Barbara Conrey [: 00:04:03

Oh, absolutely. I was the oldest, so no matter what happened, when our parents came home from work, it was my responsibility. It was my fault that had happened. Which, of course, left me not too happy with my brother, who at one point actually dug in hardwood floors in my mother's kitchen, dug little tiny little holes and made a little flower garden for Mother's Day one year and picked the little flowers, little whatever, lilacs or whatever, and put them in these little holes. So, there on the floor, in the kitchen was this little tiny, yes. We were left alone way too much.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:04:49

Clearly. I don't even know how I would deal with that. Like, that is so sweet and also so destructive.

Barbara Conrey [: 00:04:54

I know. And it wasn't even our house we were renting, which I think maybe a whole lot worse. Yes. That's the kind of things he did, because he was sweet and didn't think things through.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:05:09

Right. I have three boys, and the youngest is just like that, sweet and does not think things through. That is for sure.

Barbara Conrey [: 00:05:14

Yeah. That turned out to be my fault because I should have been able to persuade him otherwise. Kind of cute myself.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:05:23

It is pretty cute. Yeah. So, tell me something that you wish you could have understood more deeply when you were 20 years old.

Barbara Conrey [: 00:05:32

So many things. So many things. I wish I could have understood that I could say no, that I wouldn't have to be the people pleaser. That I could find a way to say what I thought without coming across as angry or disputatious. So many things. In fact, I was just talking about something very similar to this with Julie Maloney, and we were talking about once you reach a certain age, you no longer have that fear of being afraid to speak up. And it's true. It's so true. Although I think, I have a granddaughter who has no trouble speaking up. She’s respectful, but she says what she thinks. I think that the generations now, young women are improving so much on that. I think they have less of that fear than people in my age bracket who were raised basically to be seen and not heard. So, we just didn't argue and we didn't say no. If somebody asks, can you do this, certainly I can do that. And I find myself once in a while still falling into that trap. But I'm learning. Somebody that I work with in one of the Facebook groups says that I have the best way of saying no. It's like I never make anybody feel bad when they ask me for something and I just can't do it.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:07:04

Yeah, that's fabulous I feel like I'm much better at speaking out and feeling less worried about what people think. I still worry, but much less than I did 30 years ago. But I have not figured out how to say no yet, so I aspire to be you.

Barbara Conrey [: 00:07:20

Well, you don't want to be my age. No. And hopefully you'll learn that before you become my age. It's not easy. It's not easy to say no. In fact, I've said no to people that then I've really regretted saying no. But I knew we all have limitations, and if we don't accept our limitations and do what we need to do instead, we are not going to accomplish what we need to accomplish. And for me right now, that goal is writing.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:07:49

Yes. I was just going to say for you that was managing to turn and publish a USA bestselling book at the age of 70, which is amazing. So, let's talk about your newest book, My Secret to Keep. And who did you write this book for? Who are you going to connect with it? Who were you thinking of when you wrote it?

Barbara Conrey [: 00:08:07

The funny thing about that is I wrote both books to my daughter. I have two daughters, but the one in particular, my eldest daughter, is an avid reader and really loves books just as much as I do. And I had sentiments in both books that I wanted her to understand why I made some of the choices I made in my life. And even though both books are fiction, there are parts of it that are me, as I think there are in most authors books.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:08:44

We would hope.

Barbara Conrey [: 00:08:46

Yeah, I literally wrote especially the second book to her so that she would have a better understanding of me. Because I don't think kids, even when they're adults, even middle-aged adults, they don't necessarily think that much about their parents. I think that's almost like a thing that you think your parents, number one, you think they're always going to be around. Number two, whatever you did wrong when you raised them, they never forget. And you've always done something wrong. And no matter how old they are, they still remember something that you did that maybe you shouldn't have done. And of course, the mother remembers that, too. I hope I remember everything wrong I did. But I don't know. It's a long list, and I never told her that. And she's read both books. It has been hard for her to read my books because there are parts of them that are very sensitive. And her book club, she belongs to several book clubs, and she's finally become comfortable enough with the fact that I'm an author, that I've been invited to her book clubs so that I can speak about writing and my books and so that I can answer their questions. But I think it's been not the easiest thing. I think it's getting better, and I think by my third book, which is with my agent right now, and it's so far removed from my life that I don't think she'll have any problem with it.

Barbara Conrey [: 00:10:29

So, she’s, my reader. Everyone, I think, seems to have this imaginary reader. Unless she's not imaginary, but she is the person that I'm talking to.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:10:42

Yeah, that's really interesting. So, does she know that you're writing to her now?

Barbara Conrey [: 00:10:47

She does, because we've had several discussions about it, and I think it's helping to make her understand my need to put myself in the public eye. I think that was surprising to all of my family. Like, this is mom, who was a stay-at-home mom, who did whatever she was told, who kept the home fires burning, and all of a sudden, she's publishing books.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:11:20

Yeah. Okay, so, tell me about that. Do you remember, like, tell me what it was that made you, what was the moment when you said, I'm going to write a novel.

Barbara Conrey [: 00:11:30

I've always wanted to write. Always. And when my kids were little, I used to write op ed pieces for the newspaper, and they always published them. And I would literally get phone calls from the local community, like, just about whatever it was I wrote about. They loved them. But I never really thought I would write a book until a friend of mine, her granddaughter, was diagnosed with glioblastoma. And that's what my first book is about. And I literally watched my friend disappear. I mean, she literally turned gray. She became old. She watched her granddaughter die. Her granddaughter was only nine years old. And I just knew. I was so angry, and I knew that was the story I was going to write. And I never thought past that first story. So, that's the book that finally forced me to sit down and learn how to write a book.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:12:36

That's really great. It's very personal.

Barbara Conrey [: 00:12:39

Yes. And although it wasn't about me, but it was about something I cared deeply about. And I was just so angry that this disease, which is still uncurable, I mean, they're getting so much better. I've worked with numerous hospitals and doctors in research for that book. And even though in the book I create a totally fictional surgery that will remove the tumor, which is what the problem is. They can't totally remove the tumor, so it continues to grow back, and the lifespan from diagnosis to death hasn't changed much in 25 years. And so, I created this surgery, right. Which was totally fictional, but it helped me. And I couldn't believe how many people contacted me and said they had a brother, a wife, a child, a mother, a father. So many people have been affected by this disease, and they didn't look at it as, she came up with this placebo. They looked at it as, I was giving hope. And that's what I wanted. But I also wanted to show what researchers give up in order to do this. And I've had doctors and nurses contact me also and say, this is absolutely spot on. If you are a researcher and you are so driven, you just don't even see your family. You just don't even think of them. And that's how I made the protagonist.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:14:29

In Nowhere Near Goodbye?

Barbara Conrey [: 00:14:31

Yeah. And I made her female. I made her a researcher. I made her able to walk away from her husband and daughter so that she could spend her time researching. People hated her, but they loved the book, and she was pretty one dimensional because that's what she was.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:14:53

Well, we got a little bit about both of your books today then.

Barbara Conrey [: 00:14:56

Yeah.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:14:57

So, very quickly, tell us one best place online where people should go to find more about your books.

Barbara Conrey [: 00:15:02

Well, there's my website, and then there's also obviously, Amazon sells the majority of my books. I'm with a small press. My books are available any place where you get eBooks. But currently on Amazon, you can get eBook, paperback, hardback, my publisher, did a once in a lifetime and made My Secret to Keep in hardback, also. And audio, obviously.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:15:29

Okay. And so, in closing quickly, what book or story is inspiring you the most these days?

Barbara Conrey [: 00:15:35

I tend to favor literary fiction, and one of my favorite all-time books is Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. I don't know if you're familiar with him, but it's very not religion so much as spirituality and also a mystical spirituality. And I didn't realize how much that affected me until I started writing. And there's a little bit of spirituality in both of my books, so it seems to just come naturally, and I'm very affected by that.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:16:13

All right, very good. Thank you so much for that recommendation. And thank you for being on Author Express with us today. It was a pleasure to have you.

Barbara Conrey [: 00:16:21

It was wonderful. I was so glad to be here.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:16:25

Thanks for joining us today. We hope you'll take a second to give us some stars or a review on your favorite podcasting platform. We'll be back next Wednesday, and in the meantime, follow us on Instagram at Author Express Podcast to see who's coming up next. Don't forget, keep it express, but keep it interesting.