Zibby was recently joined by three-time guest Elyssa Friedland on IG Live to talk about her latest novel, Last Summer at the Golden Hotel, set during a pre-COVID summer at the last remaining resort in the Catskills. Elyssa tells Zibby about how she drew just as much inspiration from her own experiences in the Catskills as she did from Dirty Dancing, why she enjoys creating female characters that surprise readers, and offers a sneak preview about her upcoming novel, Most Likely.
Kermit Roosevelt III: First Street is a character-driven drama that's set inside the United States Supreme Court. The main characters are law clerks for the supreme court. We thought it would be very interesting to take this powerful important branch of government that operates mostly in secrecy and try to give people a look inside it through the lives of the people who work behind the scenes. You read about the justices sometimes. You never read about the clerks, but they're there. They're working on all these cases. In some situations, they're actually very important. Sometimes they affect the outcome of the case.
Elyssa: The first book, it was weird. I really didn't feel like I had a job because I would write it but there was no guarantee it was going to sell. When people were like, “Do you work?” I would just say, “No. I'm a stay-at-home mom.” They'd have to drag it out of me that I was working on a book. Until I had a contract, it didn't feel real to me.
