Grant Ginder on 'So Old, So Young' and Torrey Maldonado on 'Just Right'
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
I'm Beth Golday, and this is Marginalia. Grant Ginder's new book, So Old, So Young, follows six friends over two decades, beginning at a college New Year's Eve party. The book drops in at only five points in time over these 20 years, leaving the reader to deduce how the relationships have evolved over time. I recently spoke with Grant Ginder about crafting these moments in time and exploring the shifts we all face as we grow up. Here's our conversation.
What is Grant Ginder's book 'So Old, So Young' about?
So how would you describe this book to a reader? Do you have an elevator speech for it?
I do. I do. I would say that it is the big chill for the millennial generation. The book follows six friends over the course of 20 years. But the catch is that we only see those friends at five parties over the course of those two decades. So we catch up with them in these quick bursts as they stumble through adulthood.
So you mentioned these friends, and I'm going to attempt to name them. And you tell me if I'm focusing on the wrong friends, because there were others beyond these. But in my opinion, they're Marco, Mia, Sasha, Theo, Richie, and Adam. Is that accurate?
Perfect.
That is accurate. So what should we know about this friend group?
Sure. So this is a friend group that met in college by and large at the University of Pennsylvania. They graduate in 2006. So right before the Great Recession, they're full of hope, they are full of life, and they intersect each other's lives throughout the 20 years and have to reckon with experiences like getting married and having kids and getting older and what effect those decisions have on their friendships.
You know, I saw the words from the title about halfway through the book. I think it was in one of Sasha's chapters. She asked herself, how had she become so old, so young? Talk to me about this title. Did you play a role in choosing the title or is that a publisher thing?
How does the narrative structure reflect friendships over time?
I never know how that works.
The title came about through some brainstorming sessions with my editor. And, you know, that feeling of being so old, so young is one that I think when you look around, particularly at millennials right now, we're first starting to reckon with, which is why I say the novel is sort of like our big chill moment, right? I think everyone's had the experience of kind of like waking up one day and being like, how am I not 22 any longer? I remember when I sat down and first started writing the book, I was having that experience. I would wake up literally the middle of the night, look around my apartment, see my husband and be like, I can't figure out how I got to this exact moment in time. I was literally just graduating college and now I have a marriage and a mortgage and a 401k and very bad plantar fasciitis.
And when did that happen? And so the novel... through these friends and through their experiences, reckons with that feeling of knowing that you're getting older, but not quite believing that it's happening to you.
You know, the book is about growing older, growing up, but it's also about how relationships change and how we change. What made you want to explore this shift about how friendships might change?
I've always been super interested in novels that explore friendships, particularly long-lasting friendships. I think that when we meet people, and you'll see this in the characters in the book, they meet each other in college, which is this incredibly formative time for friendships. I think that college is almost like a greenhouse for friendships, right? Like these four years where you have so many shared experiences, and you think that those friendships are going to last forever. But as the novel shows... you start making decisions that are not necessarily in the interest of the friendship, right? You get married to someone else. You start having a child that draws your attention away from the friendship and which breeds, I think, if not resentment, then specific misunderstandings.
And those misunderstandings lead to a lot of dramatic moments in the book and these friends kind of talking past each other and not understanding where each other are in the spectrum of life.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:33
2
What is Grant Ginder's book 'So Old, So Young' about?
0:33–2:15
3
How does the narrative structure reflect friendships over time?
2:15–5:06
4
What themes of growing up are explored in 'So Old, So Young'?
5:06–6:36
5
Why did Ginder choose a party format for the book?
6:36–11:54
6
What challenges did Ginder face while writing the novel?
11:54–29:22