The 5+1 Interview with YOURS IN BOOKS Author Julie Falatko
The cooking-a-duckling-for-a-man-averse (read on, you'll get it) writer's picture-book ode to independent bookstores is out September 21
(So you don’t think I’ve lost my faculties and have sent a 5+1 that’s only a 3 +0, please note this edition is a two-parter.)
The first time I had exposure to Julie Falatko’s work, my now-10-year-old son was in the backseat, reading a book he’d just gotten at Vroman’s, and laughing. Like, a lot. As someone who has worked tirelessly to imbue that kid’s favorite stuffed penguin with a voice and personality that’s one part adorable and one part as funny as Eddie Murphy’s Raw (but [mostly] kid-friendly), I have to admit, I was like, wait, those laughs are mine. (I know, I know, kind of gross of me to admit my greediness but I think I derive powers from getting a laugh the way Superman gets recharged by the sun.)
But it wasn’t as if I didn’t know Julie Falatko was quite funny. I’d followed her on Instagram and had admired the premises for her picture books, which were always checked out of the library when I went to look for them.
And the book my older kid was laughing at (Two Dogs in a Trench Coat) was funny. Really funny. Those picture books, too, were not only cleverly premised but also funny. (My now-6-year-old really loves the fourth-wall breaking Snappsy the Alligator (Did Not Ask to Be In This Book), which you can hear read by David Harbour, the thinking woman’s heartthrob.)
Anyway, instead of festering with my abject jealousy over Julie’s great jokes, I did the thing where you write a message to tell a person you really like their work.
Here’s why that’s a good thing to do: Julie was cool enough to respond and now we talk fairly often about our work and sources of distraction and the various perks and perils of being very curious about a great many things. Her next book, Yours In Books, is out very soon — September 21 (preorder here for a signed edition) — and it’s a tribute to something we both adore, independent bookstores. It’s also an episotolary picture book that’s truly inventive, funny, and validating if you’re the kind of person who loves choosing just the right book for a fussy reader.
So of course I wanted to feature her in the 5+1. And, her answers are funny and detailed so therefore, to make sure you don’t miss anything, I am splitting this issue into two parts — a Julie Falatko Uncut Experience.
IMP: I know you have a favorite indie bookstore in your town (Print: A Bookstore in Portland, Maine), and surely several others across the U.S. but if you could open a bookstore anywhere, where would it be and what would you name it? (Also, what, if any, special features would you include?)
JF: I would put this bookstore somewhere that doesn’t have an independent bookstore. I am lucky to live in a town with a lot of bookstores nearby. Like seriously: a lot. Including my favorite, Print: A Bookstore, which I love so much I named the bookstore in Yours in Books after it. But I know there are places where there’s nowhere nearby you can go to have a passionate bookseller recommend the perfect book. Forget a chicken in every pot! I want a bookstore in every town! Or at least within an hour’s drive. Gosh, that would be revolutionary.
I’d want it to have one of those children’s sections that looks like a page from a fairy tale, like with one of those giant trees you can sit under, and a slide, and a secret nook you can crawl into. I bet those things are a pain in real bookstores. I bet rowdy kids climb that fake tree and break off the branches. But this is my fantasy bookstore, so the tree stays.
What to call it? Well, I’m pretty bad at naming things. Many of my book titles are just the pitch for the book, turned into a title. So I’d probably call the bookstore Here is a Bookstore. Or maybe Come on In and We’ll Set You Up with a Great Book. Or: This Bookstore Will Make You Smarter. Or, heck, Julie’s Books. Maybe I’m egotistical enough to claim the whole thing for myself.
IMP: I pride myself on choosing the right books for people and I know you do, too. What is one of the most victorious experiences you've had in picking the exact right read for someone?
JF: A few years ago, we built a Little Free Library in front of our house. The neighborhood kids were pretty excited about it. But there was one boy, who was maybe 12, who wasn’t having any of the book excitement. He’d stand back with his arms crossed, scowling. He’d grumble, “I don’t like books.” It became my quest to find a book he’d want to read. I told him I’d find the perfect book for him. Every week I’d put new books into the Little Free Library, and the neighborhood kids would borrow them or keep them, and this boy would circle the block on his bicycle, eying the Little Free Library warily.
And then one day, I heard him yelling, “I found it! I found my book!” I looked out the window to see him hugging a book to his chest, riding away no-handed on his bike. The book was a 1960s engine repair manual. When I put it out there, I didn’t know that would be his book, but it was. You never know. You have to keep trying. This happened in 2013, and to be honest I’m still riding the high of that victory.
IMP: You got a very enviable gift for Christmas: The Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library from 1971. I imagine by now you've spent enough time with it that you can answer the questions: What recipe makes you feel the most sympathy for the cooks -- probably women homemakers -- of 1971? And which recipe illustrates a ‘70s food trend you think needs to make a comeback?
JF: My first thought about the recipe that made me feel the most sympathy for 1970s homemakers is one from the Children’s Parties section. There is an undercurrent of pressure in this section to try to throw an event for Junior that will make him happy for once, and failing before you even start. So many of these themed get-togethers look like disasters from the get-go: a cake shaped like a demonic ladybug, or one where you make space people out of dough and have them emerging from Jell-O spaceships. But there are some hints that Mom is in control, like throwing an Age of Aquarius party with a zodiac cake and doing astrology readings for all the party guests, which sounds like something I’d do with my friends now, not something that would make the average 8-year-old happy. There’s also a party called a Hobo Hike where you force the kids to wander into the woods and cook their own lunch in a coffee can, which really sounds like “I’m sick of your sass, Junior, here’s a can, happy birthday.” I love that.
So I think a lot about the Children’s Parties, mostly because that ladybug cake and the LollyGog haunt my dreams, but the section that really earns my sympathy is Men’s Favorites, and the recipe from that section that is the pinnacle of all my modern feminist horror is Savory Duckling on a Spit. I mean, if you want to roast a baby duck on a spit, knock yourself out, but if a recipe tells me I need to please my man with one of these “princely recipes for kingly dishes, tested and male-approved for you” and THEN tells me I should make “one of the simpler recipes” and offers up roasting a duckling over coals on a spit -- well. I think what I feel is rage more than sympathy. Sympathetic rage? It literally takes three hours to make, involves shoving sauce up a cavity (of the duck, I assume) and after that, SERVES TWO. I’d be like “here’s a can, have yourself a goddamn hobo hike, I’m going to each a peach over the sink.” I mean, come on.
The section that needs a comeback is the Come for Coffee recipes. The idea that someone might stop by mid-morning for a slice of bundt cake or a Danish open-faced sandwich and a cup of coffee? That sounds so great. Although as I write this, I’m realizing that maybe I’m not ready for people to interrupt my morning. I already have all these children here interrupting my morning. Ok, the kids can have a slice of cake if they want, and I’ll take a jiffy tart back to my desk. I think mostly I’m an advocate for treats to go with coffee. More treats, please!
Other stuff I’m liking lately:
Three books I read and really loved that have come up in previous editions — Indestructible Object by Mary McCoy, The Second Season by Emily Adrian, and Drawn that Way by Elissa Sussman (out next month, as will be an edition of this newsletter featuring her, I hope).
The White Lotus on HBO Max, but you all know about that already. I think it did an outstanding job of comically probing the unavoidable truth: wherever you go, there you are.
Paying in cash. There are a lot of reasons to fight back against the growing number of businesses that ask for touchless payments, credit cards, etc. (less wealthy people don’t always have smartphones or credit cards; immigrants, the homeless, and the elderly often rely on cash) and the other day I was thinking about the autonomy of young people when I saw some high school kids pooling their money to pay for an order at Zankou Chicken. Being able to manage (or not manage) your own stash of cash is a huge piece of young independence that will be lost if you can only pay from a digital allowance (most likely allocated and even monitored by parents). My serious soapbox moment of the day, thank you.