The Trade Off

Kristy (00:00)
Welcome to Books I Make My Husband Read, a self-described, hilarious, and heartfelt podcast where I, Kristy, the devoted book lover, curate an unexpected reading list for my husband, Jon.

Jon (00:10)
And that's me. Each episode, we'll dive into lively discussions, humorous debates, and surprising insights on the books Kristy just has to make me read.

Kristy (00:18)
We're here to explore everything from timeless classics to quirky hidden gems, challenging our perspectives and inviting you to join in on the fun.

Jon (00:26)
Settle in, grab your favorite beverage, and get ready for another literary adventure.

Kristy (00:46)
Hello listeners and welcome to season two, episode eight of Books I Make My Husband Read. I'm your host, Kristy.

Jon (00:52)
and I'm your co-host Jon, the one who Kristy forces to read all the books. You do, you do.

Kristy (00:56)
Wait, wait.

That is not untrue. So this week we'll be discussing The Trade-Off by Samantha Greene Woodruff, a smart, emotionally-charged historical novel about a brilliant young woman navigating early Wall Street from the shadows.

Jon (01:11)
Per usual, you picked a good one. ⁓ I enjoyed this one. I had pound through it, but it was pretty good. I'm excited to get into the weeds on it.

Kristy (01:20)
I am extremely excited and we have a surprise guest joining us at the end of the episode.

Jon (01:31)
What? Do I need a drum roll? Do we need a drum roll?

Kristy (01:35)
I figured we would wait to make people listen to the whole episode. What do you think? Just saying.

Jon (01:41)
Carrot and stick, carrot and stick.

Just saying. Make it through. Yeah. No, that's cool. Great.

Kristy (01:48)
And just some more about this book. As I said, I really enjoyed it, but I'm honestly surprised that we're not seeing this book in more places. It has really good ratings on Goodreads, but it doesn't have some of the number of reviews that I would expect a book that I think is just so great. And I'm surprised more people aren't talking about it.

Jon (02:10)
Hmm. All right. Well, maybe us talking about it will get other people. So before we get into all of that wonderful discussion, we need to let our listeners know that the next two books in our lineup are going to be A Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry and A Blank Space by Taylor Swift. No, I'm just kidding. What is the what is the book after A Great Big Beautiful Life, Kristy?

Kristy (02:14)
Yeah

The next book is The Love Haters by Katherine Center.

Jon (02:40)
⁓ okay. You've talked about that artist or artist. You talked about that author before you mentioned her and I haven't read one of hers yet.

Kristy (02:48)
Yeah, so you've had the Abby Jimenez treatment, you've had the Emily Henry treatment, and now you're dipping your toe in the Katherine Center world. Okay. I'm very excited for you.

Jon (02:59)
I am excited for me too. Can hear it in my voice. ⁓

Kristy (03:04)
But also remember that you can always see what books we'll be discussing next by visiting our website, booksImakemyhusbandread.com.

Jon (03:11)
Yep. And if you want to see even more about us and all our silliness, please follow us on Instagram at BooksIMakeMyHusbandRead. That's it. Just BooksIMakeMyHusbandRead. We post a lot of fun reels and Kristy includes book reviews of ones that she hasn't made me read. And you'll realize how many more books she actually does read than me in any given month or year.

Kristy (03:35)
But I also wanted to thank our listeners real quick because last episode was our most listened to episode yet.

Jon (03:45)
I know people are going to get sick of us saying that because we have been trending upwards each episode. So thank you for everyone who's sharing it out and letting people know their friends and family, letting them know about this podcast. We appreciate it.

Kristy (03:58)
Yes, if you like our podcast, please tell a friend and please rate and review.

Jon (04:03)
in tea.

Kristy (04:04)
But would you like to move on to that spoiler-free book-summary?

Jon (04:08)
I suppose we should. It is that part of the episode.

Kristy (04:11)
Bea Abramovitz has a gift for math and numbers. With her father, she studies the burgeoning Wall Street market stocks and patterns in the financial pages. After college, she's determined to parlay her talent for the prediction game into personal and professional success. But in the 1920s, in a Lower East Side tenement, opportunities for women don't just come knocking. Bea will have to create them.

Jon (04:33)
But it's easier for her golden boy twin brother Jake, who longs to reclaim all their parents lost after fleeing Russia to come to America. Well intentioned, but undisciplined, Jake has a charm that can carry him only so far on Wall Street. So Bea devises a plan. There'll be a secret team and she'll be the brains behind the broker. As Jake's reputation, his heedless ego, and the family fortune sore, Bea foresees an impending crash that could destroy everything if she doesn't finally take.

control.

Kristy (05:03)
Inspired by the true story of a pioneering investment legend, The Trade-Off is a powerful novel about identity, sacrifice, family loyalties, and the complex morality of money.

Jon (05:14)
Yes, is. Wahaha. All right then, everybody grab your wallets and hold on tight because we're about to drop spoilers harder than the Dow on Black Tuesday. Nailed it.

Kristy (05:33)
my gosh, that was a good one.

Jon (05:34)
Hey, thanks. I tried to make him part of the book.

Kristy (05:39)
and I won't give you shit for it.

Jon (05:41)
Right on. Well, while we get started, let's talk about what we thought of this book. ⁓ What did you think?

Kristy (05:48)
As I mentioned, I really liked this one and there's also some things about it that really irritated me, but not with the writing, more about things in the book, which we'll get to. But the writing itself is beautiful. This is Samantha Greene Woodruff's second novel. I haven't read the first one, but I am excited to. I randomly came across this book on Goodreads. It was rated really well. I immediately went and got it on Audible.

And then it kind of sat there for a while because I just had other things pop up. And I was like, yeah, I have to go back and read this. I was really excited to. And so popped it on, immediately fell in love with the story and Bea's character told you, you had to read it. And here we are. But I just appreciate any really well-researched historical fiction novel, which this is. Woodruff drops you in right in the middle of 1920s.

⁓ New York City, I'll say, and you are feeling everything that's going on. You're smelling the smells. You're like part of the characters and like their growth and development. And I don't want to give too much away here, but I just really enjoyed it and really appreciated it. What about you? What did you think of it?

Jon (07:02)
Yeah, overall I enjoyed this book too. I even though most of the, I would say most of the characters drove me a certain level of nuts through the whole.

Kristy (07:10)
I would agree with that statement. mean, I did really like Bea's character for a lot of reasons, but there were a couple that I'm like, ⁓ girl.

Jon (07:17)
⁓

Pauline and Jake in particular were pretty painful. Jake is the worst. Yeah, he is. I knew that the book was set in the 1920s, but I also kind of had to consciously remind myself of that through the story. ⁓ I think it helped me keep social context with that time period, which I'll get to in some of the other questions that ⁓ I had.

Also while I was reading this, I wondered to myself if ⁓ I would look at this book or any of the decisions that the characters made throughout this book, if I would look at them differently, if I didn't know what was going to happen in the end, ⁓ if it was more of a fiction novel than a historical fiction novel, I wonder if my... ⁓

Kristy (08:07)
Think the value of hindsight. If you know where it's leading to.

Jon (08:08)
Yeah.

Right. Like some of the decisions and like, ⁓ that's terrible. But maybe if I didn't know what was going to be happening, I would think that maybe I'd be a little bit more excited about it than I would be like nervous or something. I don't know. I'm sure there's just like a different, I'm sure I would have seen it like a little bit differently, but.

Kristy (08:29)
Yeah, I think that's really fair. I think that will come up in our discussion. But what's really frustrating as a reader, and if you're still with us and you haven't read this, it is set in 1920 in the 1920s just before the ⁓ crash of the stock market. And so you have a character who is

basically ringing the bell that this is going to happen. And because she is a woman, no one is listening to her. Even the people closest to aren't. And that's really frustrating as a reader because you know this is happening. This is not a maybe, this is going to happen. This is real life. But if you lived in that period of time, this had never happened at that point. It had always just gotten better and better. It had always recovered. And so I can understand

doesn't make it any less hurtful when you're reading it, but you can understand why people were dismissing her.

Jon (09:20)
Oh, absolutely. Yep. Yep. And I think that's part of, I think that's part of what I meant by like, I needed to keep reminding myself of that time period for reasons like that.

Kristy (09:30)
So what was your first impression of Bea Abramovitz? Did that impression change over the course of the novel?

Jon (09:36)
I liked Bea as a protagonist. was pretty, she was easy to root for despite some of her wildly annoying decisions that she makes towards the end of the book. I wouldn't say that like my opinion changed of her through those decisions though. I think that's again, kind of part of like I had to keep reminding myself this is the twenties, this isn't today. There is a different point of view and a different like societal norm. And I think that helped me empathize with her a little bit more too after like wall after wall she hit of rejection.

⁓ for all the different interviews that she was doing, even rejection from her own brother and from her boyfriend. So yeah, I empathized with her. I liked her character and I was definitely rooting for her ⁓ to have the ending that she had.

Kristy (10:21)
Yeah, I agree. I liked Bea a lot. I liked your character. We see her in a period of time when actually women just received the right to vote and kind of like the women how in that novel set, you know, around Vietnam, we see our character, Frankie saying things are changing for women and this is set 50 years earlier and yet.

women had that mindset then and Bea has that mindset that like she can do more, she has more opportunities, yet she still gets the proverbial door slammed in her face at every turnaround. And I liked her a lot, except as I think you're alluding to like some of the decisions she made toward the end with Nate.

Jon (11:13)
Yeah.

Kristy (11:14)
specifically who's the love interest, who she ends up marrying. I think I have a question about this, so I don't wanna say too much about it, but I was really surprised by the decision she made. But I guess surprised, also like you're saying, these women felt limited then, and she probably didn't consider some of the things that, I mean, we would have considered, or I would have considered as a woman.

Jon (11:24)
Yeah, same.

Yeah. And I think even back then too, not that dissimilar from today, like you beat your head against the wall long enough, like eventually you're just going to stop and you're to give up. It's not worth it.

Kristy (11:49)
You're exactly right. Discuss the different ways in which the Abramovitz family responded to their shifting financial situation, which happens a couple of times in the book. How did it change each of them?

Jon (12:02)
don't

know. I don't know that I know how to answer this one specifically. I think if I were to answer it in like a broad sweeping statement, think that Lew and Bea were sort of the strong and steadfast characters, where Pauline and Jake were more of the reckless, naive characters, even through the ups and downs. Of course, we find out later that Pauline wasn't quite as naive as she was leading on. But yeah, I don't know that I really analyzed each character individually. What are your thoughts on how they changed?

Kristy (12:31)
agree with most of what you're saying that Lew and Bea, they're definitely trying to get ahead, working really hard, but also being very conservative in how they're spending and investing their money. When they expand the grocery store and buy the building, they're putting away funds for a rainy day and they're not overspending. She talks about, I only bought this one new dress or I'm still having Sophie make my dresses and she's being very...

very conservative with her money, as is her father. But on the other hand, we see Jake throughout the entire novel. I wanna slap him. If he was my brother, I would have slapped him. 1920s be damned. Completely reckless throughout the entire book. And this just was one of those moments that I, Bea is must have a heart of gold because I could not have been as forgiving.

Jon (13:11)
I know.

shit.

Kristy (13:28)
Like the first time, maybe. The second time, no ma'am. No ma'am. So I think that what you're saying is right on track that, you know, we see two of them being more conservative. We see the other ones being a little more reckless. But I think to your point, like Pauline, I don't know that she's not reckless, but she's seeing what is going on despite some of her outward reactions to her daughter. She does trust her daughter and she thinks that her daughter is extremely intelligent.

I don't agree with her withholding this from her daughter. But when it really counts, she does put her faith in her daughter. But it doesn't mean though to me, she still wasn't reckless throughout the book. Like we are seeing that.

Jon (14:11)
Right, right, right. That's true. Yeah, maybe reckless is, I guess I lumped her into the reckless encampment because of just the way that she thought about money or the way she approached money and was frivolous. Maybe that's a better word. Frivolous for her. Yeah.

Kristy (14:27)
Yeah, yeah, yep.

So we mentioned Sophie and Bea and Sophie have a unique friendship. What did you think about it and in what ways do you feel it grew over the course of the book?

Jon (14:38)
I don't know, I didn't really overanalyze their relationship. I think Sophie, you know, she was a long, a close longtime friend that they grew up together. She was kind of Bea's rock, I would say. She was a great listener. She was one of the few that was really honest with Bea, in particular the point when she was confiding, when Bea was confiding in Sophie about the deception that her and Jake were pulling off and she was the only one to say, need to tell Nate about this.

and she didn't listen even though she was right. ⁓

Kristy (15:11)
Well, you

say she's the only one that's telling her a tell Nate about, she's also the only one be told.

Jon (15:17)
Yeah, yeah, sure. right. Yeah, I mean, I think it's really important to have someone, I think it was important to be, have someone like that throughout the whole journey and to know that she had someone to confide in and rely on and be a sounding board for that, you she didn't really have, especially not with their mother. So, yeah.

Kristy (15:41)
Yeah, I like their friendship in the book. I think would have been even interesting and not that the author would have done this, but they're two women at a period of time when women actually didn't have that much autonomy and they're trying to make their way in the world in their own respective way. So she's trying to work on Wall Street, Sophie's a seamstress. So she is, has interest in like opening a dress shop. And I think that it would have been fun

to have a story about their relationship as well, or maybe even more there. Because I think that was a unique perspective that they were both going through, not just Bea's story, but also Sophie's doing this thing too, which we hear about some in the book, but how they really support each other because Sophie's business does end up taking off because of some of the connections that Bea's making and helping her out with. Some fan fiction about Bea and Sophie.

Jon (16:35)
Yeah, that's a great point.

There you go. Little novella.

Kristy (16:42)
Yeah. So jumping off the Bea and Sophie and being friends for a long time, Bea befriends some newer gals at JP Morgan Chase, Henny and Millie. What type of influence did you feel each of them had on Bea?

Jon (16:57)
Henny and Millie were great. Actually Millie, so I listened to it right on an audible. The narrator, the way that she does Millie's voice, it reminded me of the girl that Raj dated on Big Bang Theory. The really awkward one. Yeah, yeah. It sounded just like her. So that's who I kept picturing in my head every time she spoke.

Both of them were great. I think they represented really kind of the ends of the spectrum. They were her inner circle. They were people she could trust. They helped balance her work and social life. What I mean by the spectrum is like, Henny was really the most bubbly, the most outgoing, ⁓ vivacious of the group. Milly was really on the other end of the spectrum. Kind of the quieter, more timid, more shy. And Bea was kind of like right in the middle.

I think they balance each other out really well and kind of, you know, leaned on each other, leaned on whoever they needed to based on them.

Kristy (18:00)
Yeah, I think that's right. I just really appreciated both these relationships and they both had their purpose in the book. But I also like it because networking in a man's world is so important. And we see Bea and Henny and Millie with their limited, you know, resources, connections, whatever you want to call it, network as a woman really still utilize and lean on each other.

and leverage their own relationships in with what they have. I think that is such an important, or was such an important and key point or part of Bee's story that she's doing this. And I don't think she gets to where she ends up being without those relationships.

Jon (18:50)
Yeah, I would agree with that.

Kristy (18:52)
So let's talk about Jake. Sure. Jake is Bea's brother and multiple times throughout the story, he makes terrible financial choices, but never really takes responsibility for it, nor does he change his behavior. How did you feel about Bea's insistence on constantly protecting him instead of, how shall I put this, letting him sleep in the bed that he made for himself?

Jon (19:18)
No shit. Man, was easily like the second most frustrating thing about this entire book was Jake. The first being the gaslighting that the experience like.

Kristy (19:28)
Oh, almost think Jake was more annoying than me. Mainly because again, I have two brothers and I would have slapped him silly.

Jon (19:37)
Yeah, so I understood how Jake could have been deceived by the oil scandal in the beginning. That made sense to me, right? But you lose everything the way he did in that. To then seemingly just forget that never happened to him and continue to be blind and reckless was just infuriating.

Kristy (19:58)
Well, hold on, before you even get to the half of his long list of grievances or problems, mistakes, I hear you on the, can maybe, like, I won't even say overlook that, the oil thing, because I think that's only partially true. I think that I can understand how we got caught up in it. But when you have a sister who,

basically helps you graduate school and he doesn't even give five seconds of looking into it because he's so fucking arrogant. No, I'm sorry. Like that is, there's no excuse for that. There's, you're fine. mean, like shit happens. People get, you know, swindled, especially around that period. Like we don't know what we do now, but for him just to like blatantly ignore people warning and when Nate calls too. I'm not okay with that.

Jon (20:54)
I agree, but even more frustrating was just how she kept, how he kept bailing him out at every single turn. even with that, like even with the oil thing, how she had to like save them financially from that mess. And then when he, you know, he came back and thought he had ruined everything, that they were all lost, they lost the store or whatever. And then he was just like, it's fine. Okay, cool. I'm just going to go back to what I was doing.

Kristy (21:17)
Yeah, I'm just gonna help you do dishes for a couple of weeks and then I'm like gonna go on my merry way and live the same way.

Jon (21:23)
I think the only asterisk that I could maybe put on all of this was their twins. Now, like I have siblings, sure. You have brothers, like you said. Like I don't think I can really fully appreciate the connection that a twin might have and the way that they would want to protect each other.

Kristy (21:43)
Do you see my face?

Jon (21:44)
No, I can't. I'm not excusing it. I'm just trying to find like an alternate point of view. like. Don't. Fine. He's the worst. He's worst.

Kristy (21:56)
I you

to back me up on my petty vendettas.

Jon (22:01)
Yeah, okay. I got you on this one. Yeah, but I mean, then the second time through, you know, later on, and he was just ignoring her again and ignoring all the signals and he just looks through everything with the rose colored glasses and

Kristy (22:13)
Get back to a good spot again after he gets the job through Nate and he's only successful because Bea's the one calling the shots, which why she let him do, why she agreed to that. I, another frustrating part. That's the trade off. But he continues to spend and spend and spend like it's just going to be there where Bea is like investing and saving and she's like,

Jon (22:24)
Yeah.

Kristy (22:43)
This is not the stock market can't always go up. Like we have to be ready and he's just like buying his mom's stuff and buying more houses than he needs and all this. Yeah. Takes the worst.

Jon (22:58)
is the worst. I concur.

Kristy (23:01)
The Great Crash of 1929 is a well-documented historical event. Did you learn anything new about the crash or about the stock market in general?

Jon (23:10)
maybe just that there were people that actually made a ton of money from the crash. You're sort of taught to think that everyone suffered in that time, everyone lost. Yeah, right. I still, and like, I still don't really totally understand what selling short means or how that worked. But clearly it was a critical strategy. Yeah, short selling or like how any of that worked or how they could make money off that.

Kristy (23:19)
like we learned in the big short.

Jon (23:37)
I think that's really the piece that jumps out to me the most is something that I just want to put that piece together. Yeah. You?

Kristy (23:44)
I don't feel like I know hardly anything about the stock market except the fundamental basics about like shares and you buy them at X price and blah, blah, blah. But I don't think I could explain it here, but I felt like I did understand it more in the book than I did in explanations of the one we went through in 2008. But I agree with you, like hearing about other people who made

money off of it, I guess that makes sense.

Jon (24:17)
Yeah, I think maybe another thing I just thought of was how the banks were borrowing money and putting back into the market to give the perception of stability when really it was just, it was even more borrowed funds. They weren't real.

Kristy (24:34)
That really exacerbated it from what I understand and ended up causing it to be sooner or whatnot. Of course, I went on Wikipedia rabbit hole after I read this book trying to learn more about it. But yeah, there's totally tracks. So what you're telling me is you're using your shares to put down collateral, but you don't have to pay taxes on those shares because it's not real money.

Jon (24:48)
for you.

But you can buy- Yep, yep, exactly.

Kristy (25:04)
You can use it as collateral. Anyway,

we won't go there.

Jon (25:09)
But

clearly that's been going on since the 20s. good times.

Kristy (25:14)
So the world of banking was close to women like Bea, yet she persevered. What would you have done in Bea's situation, you know, if you were a woman growing up in the 1920s?

Jon (25:25)
Yeah, let me try to put that hat on. I don't think I would have been as strong as her. My personality type is just way different. I honestly think I probably would have been a little bit more like Millie in this book as a character than Bea. I would have tried to work hard, but I don't think I would have I think you're Sophie in the book.

Kristy (25:25)
Sure, you can totally relate to.

Like you have your crap.

Jon (25:49)
⁓ yeah. Okay. I can see selfie. Sure. I never considered that. Yeah.

Kristy (25:54)
I mean, you can be Millie if you want to, but.

Jon (25:56)
I'll be Sophie. I'll be the wise sage and the sounding board rock. I don't know. What about you? If you drop yourselves in the 1920s like that.

Kristy (26:07)
It's easy to say that I would have not put up with the crap, but also it's, I mean, this is almost a hundred years, or this is a hundred years ago. I mean, even 20 years ago, I think of some of the stuff that I let happen to me as a woman and people talk to me. And I have someone, I have heard someone say to me, this is not my perception. Like these words have been said to me in my face. You have to watch what you say because you're a woman.

Jon (26:37)
So I didn't say that by the way

Kristy (26:40)
Yeah, to be clear for this, this

was before Jon. So it's easy to say, what I was, well, my point is with that is like, I look at that in how I handled that situation and my reaction to that situation and how I would react now. And it would be totally different. So it's easy to say that I wouldn't make those decisions as Bea, but she was so strong for.

where she was in 1920, she completely, you know, she absolutely persevered. She didn't let things get in her way. But like you said, eventually you get worn down. If you get told no enough times, like you're just gonna, you are going to stop. Most people are. It's extremely difficult to just keep picking yourself back up. So jumping off there, perseverance and trusting oneself are two prevalent themes in the novel. What impact did they have on the novel itself?

And then how did you feel as you read about it?

Jon (27:40)
I'm really not sure how to answer this one. So I would love to just kind of hear your thoughts on this question. I'll try to rip off that, but I wasn't really sure how to answer this one.

Kristy (27:50)
Okay. The overall theme is like Bea, you have everything you need to succeed. That's the trusting yourself part. And it is going to be incredibly hard and difficult for you as a woman. But the perseverance is what is going to get you there. And we see Bea, you know, take two steps forward and one step back. And, you know, she thinks that she has this door open. You know, she goes to like the first job interview.

And the ladies, because she knows she can't just go work on Wall Street. And even actually before that, we see her not have the classes available to her at her women's only college. And what does she do? She goes, finds the class or her brother lets her know about the class at his school. She convinces, you know, her dean to make a connection and she goes takes

a one-on-one course with, you know, the professor there. And then he gets her the interview at the Women's Only and she thought she was going to go in there and get the job. Guess what? She didn't. She ends up in, you know, another department. So like all these things keep happening. She's moving forward. She's getting it. And I feel like at every point in time, she thinks X is going to happen. Y ends up happening, but she keeps going on. And so I think that while the story is about the stock market,

The story really is about Bea and her perseverance as a woman through this period of time, all the things she went through and that she was right. Take that, Min.

Jon (29:25)
Yeah, that's true. Like she really had to kind of blaze her own path. Nothing was handed to her. She had to problem solve every step along the way in order to fix other people's problems. still like be required or be expected to be at home and take care of the family and do all those other things as well.

Kristy (29:36)
to achieve whatever goals.

Yep. All right. So we haven't talked about the love interest in the book, but let's talk about Bea and her beau Nathan. Do you think there was actually real trust there?

Jon (30:02)
I do, but I think I say that again through like the prism of the time period. It's like he saw her, he saw who she was, what drove her, why she was special, but the societal norms of the time really kept him from truly acting on what he saw. I'm not excusing it. just, I think that was the reality of the time. And it's really unfortunate that it took this cataclysmic event like the crash.

before he or anyone really allowed himself to look beyond the norms of that time period and acknowledge and accept the brilliant person that she was, is, was, was. So I do, I think there was trust there. He just didn't know how, it was never modeled for him how to show it. So based on your reaction and your disgruntled face, I'm gonna,

Kristy (30:45)
voice.

Jon (31:01)
assume you have a different opinion.

Kristy (31:04)
Well, I hear you. think that you're right, different time period. It is hard to drop yourself as we just talked about a couple of questions ago, really into how things felt, what the climate was there. But Bea says that she realizes her relationship with Nate is, and I quote this from the book, more important than whatever might happen on Wall Street, end quote. So she's saying there was this point in the book where,

She's really frustrated with Nate because he's not believing her and she just decides to like, let it be and I love him and I'm gonna put that little thing in a box and turn the key and love him for who he is even though he doesn't think I'm right about the stock market crash. So while I think that statement is true on a very binary level, that's not what the problem is. The problem is that if he really trusted her, could he have taken five seconds to investigate it?

Could he have taken five seconds to hear her out without judgment, without anything else? But I'm also wondering, and this is not anything with Nate, I kept waiting for the professor that she worked with one on one that really helped her out and appreciated her. And I feel like did see her as this new, she would have a hard time.

but saw her as like this prodigy almost and the way she understood the stock market, I kept waiting for her to go back to him and say, here's what I'm seeing. Please prove me wrong. Please tell me this is not gonna happen. Here's my numbers. Here's what I think. And that didn't happen because obviously I think that wouldn't have fit the narrative because a crash does happen. But I did keep waiting for like her to go like,

someone validate her, which she doesn't get. But so it's not that Nate doesn't believe her. It's that he just outright dismisses her, in my opinion. And this is someone you love and trust. mean, you can totally disagree with them, but you owe it to that person to hear them out. So I think in a lot of ways, he saw Bea or he acted like he saw Bea as

this extremely smart, extremely talented person in understanding these things, but then the application of that in real life didn't happen.

Jon (33:37)
I think that's fair. think in the beginning, before they got engaged, before the engagement, I think he was more open to listening to her and to hearing her out. think the, I don't even know how to describe the non-engagement engagement piece and the whole time where she's working with her brother. like, I think that spoiled his view of her maybe a little bit also.

Kristy (34:05)
Which is fair, that was her making terrible choices. ⁓ yeah, we haven't even really talked about that, but you're absolutely right there.

Jon (34:08)
Right

So I think that influenced how Nate felt about her and her point of view later on when she's bringing this back to him.

Kristy (34:21)
Yeah, I think that's completely fair.

Jon (34:24)
which I can't believe she did that. The whole debacle, she's like, I understand why she wanted to go be the broker behind the scene. That was the only way she was going to get to have the thrill and excitement that she thought was going to fulfill her life. she was naive in thinking that Jake would open the curtain that everyone see.

Kristy (34:48)
Yeah. And as soon as he didn't hold his first, like she should have just said no. Yeah. Absolutely not. I get her doing it at first. I really do. But for her to do it that long and to lie to Nate and I mean, she's not innocent in what you're saying and his trust of her. I I think that's a very fair point to that, but he didn't get to see truly like what she was capable of. ⁓

she's hiding it from her from him for two years or however I think it was however length of time. Okay, so yeah, Jake. ⁓ no, stop.

Jon (35:19)
I think it was a fully.

Okay, moving on. Let's talk about the second worst person of the book.

Kristy (35:30)
yes.

So, Bee also has a strained relationship with her mother. How did you feel about the dynamic between them? What did you think about their reconciliation at the end of the book?

Jon (35:44)
So I really disliked Pauline. Really, probably as much as you just like Jake, I think. ⁓

Kristy (35:51)
I mean, I just like them both to be clear.

Jon (35:54)
I

think Bea, at some level, craved, she wanted the same attention and affection from her that she was glowing over of Jake. I also think that's also part of what drove her to make some of the decisions that she made along the way. I was genuinely surprised at the end of the book when Pauline came to her in secret to acknowledge that I've been listening to you the whole time.

I hear you, if you really think this is going to happen, go do what you need to do to save us again. Now, I think maybe her motivations were more rooted in, don't want to be poor again and not necessarily, think you're amazing, go do this thing, but hey, take what you can get.

Kristy (36:34)
You don't want me to fart?

think it was a little of both.

Jon (36:44)
Yeah, was probably, probably it was like, so many 30. But anyway, so it was just really cringy. was really cringy how doting Pauline was on Jake the whole time, even when he was making the most absurd decisions and yeah, it was just, it was, some of it was really hard to listen to. So that's my thought on Pauline.

Kristy (37:06)
Yeah, I agree with you. She was a really difficult character to care about. you're right. think Bea throughout most of the novel is searching for the adoration that Jake gets from their mom that Pauline just does not at all acknowledge in her daughter. Yet her daughter's making all the right choices. She's staying home to help the family because, you know, that's what you did then. And she is still

went to school, finished college faster than she, quote unquote, should. She got a job, she's contributing to the family pool of money and still helping her mom with chores, still cooking dinner. It's not like she was doing actually most of the things at the home. Yet, Jake gets all the credit for doing absolutely nothing. Nothing, yeah. For continuing to make an ass out himself multiple times.

Jon (38:01)
Multiple times, also it's it's also peaceful for never acknowledging or sharing that like, hey, I'm the one that actually saved us from Jake, especially the first time I'm referring to the oil downfall. She kept that to herself and she's like, mom will never know the why's there. It just always, I'll be the same. I'm like, girl, let's leverage.

Kristy (38:25)
Right.

So I know at this point I normally say, you have any final thoughts on the book? But as we mentioned at the top of the show, we have a very special guest joining us for this episode. And I am so pleased to welcome the author of this novel, Samantha Greene Woodruff to Books I Make My Husband Read! Welcome Samantha, we're so happy to have you here.

Jon (38:47)
Yay!

Samantha (38:51)
Thank you for having me.

Kristy (38:52)
So I'm curious what really drew you to historical fiction over some of the other genres out there.

Samantha (38:58)
So this is my second novel and my first novel, The Lobotomist's Wife was also historical fiction. I was a history major and undergrad. So I always loved history, but then I went and I worked in media and I did all sorts of other things and I started kind of writing novels on a lark. Like I took a continuing education class when I had my second child and I couldn't go into Manhattan with my husband also having a job and it was too much. And so then I did several things, but one of them was I took a novel writing class.

And I was writing a contemporary novel and it wasn't gonna go anywhere because I am a tell-all kind of person, so I write very close to my world. I just knew it was an exercise for me. And basically it was a story about a housewife who was not happy in a life that should have been perfect and she starts acting out. And then I...

read about lobotomy and realized what it was. And then I said, my God, what if this house fight wasn't happy in the late 40s and early 50s, then the answer would be lobotomy. And so then all of sudden it was a novel. so I got, and then I was like, wow, this is the perfect genre for me. I'm a huge reader of historical fiction. I was a history major. I love doing research and putting it all together and telling a story. And I still have freedom in historical fiction to kind of invent where I want to.

⁓ So I came out, I wrote this first book and it was a success reasonably. And then this whole GameStop thing happened in 2021. I have an MBA, but I'm not a business person. If you read my author's note in the back, I make it very clear. I knew nothing about the markets really at all. And when my husband who works in finance would try and talk about the markets with me.

I would kind of glaze over and be bored with it for a few minutes. But with GameStop, suddenly there was like a real human story that I actually had a personal connection to because the hedge fund short seller was my husband's first best work friend. And so I got drawn into this idea that there is much more complexity around wealth and

being wealthy or not being wealthy, particularly if that money is made in the stock market. And I kind of said to my husband, I wish I could write about this, but I write historical fiction and this is a contemporary thing. And he said, well, there was this guy who famously shorted the crash of 29. And then I said, okay, I can write another historical fiction novel and it can really be about GameStop and the complexity of wealth and money and the financial world and all of that, but I can set it in a historical setting.

And so I was able to pull in real places and things and people and keep it very much of the era. But again, all my characters are made up. And that's, think, part of why it's really a character driven story that happens to take place in the 1920s as the stock market crash is coming versus a story about the stock market.

Jon (41:58)
That makes a lot of sense. Maybe piggybacking off of that, in books like this, that something that fascinates me are the characters and the depth of characters. I was just, I was so impressed and I just really enjoyed how well each of the characters were written and how they each had like their own lane. I don't know a better way to describe that. We were talking about, there are obviously characters that we really enjoyed and then there are characters that like Joel was flipping bonkers.

and

Samantha (42:28)
everyone hates jake i personally have a soft spot for him but everyone else

Jon (42:32)
⁓

okay.

Kristy (42:34)
I said in our episode, have two brothers and no way. I would have slapped them silly.

Jon (42:42)
Was any of, so you also kind of alluded in the beginning that you write kind of close to your own personal experience. Like, what were some of your factors that you pulled into from your real life to create some of these characters?

Samantha (42:55)
Great question. I think there are two big ones. So the first was once I decided that my short seller was going to be a woman and not Jesse Livermore or Jesse Livermore's wife as my protagonist while Livermore's doing what he's doing, but she's the woman behind the man or something like that. Those are some of my original ideas because I'm very interested in this idea that wealth does not equal bad and

poor does not equal good, but that there's a lot of gray area in between. And I wouldn't say for a moment that hedge fund guys aren't compensated on a pay scale that is a little bit obscene versus teachers. And my husband's a hedge fund guy. I am sort of liberal minded and believe that there is an inequality of wealth in our country that is tricky.

But I also think that doesn't make the people who are on the receiving end of lots of money bad people fundamentally. And I really wanted to try and get into that nuance. So I wanted to create a short seller who had a relationship with wealth and money that came from somewhere else that was more empathetic to the reader. And in my own family history, I'm Jewish and my grandmother, whose name is Pauline,

was the youngest, no, I know she was the youngest, she was the only daughter of a family of four or five, and they were, mother, both of her parents were Jewish immigrants, but her mother had been aristocratically wealthy when she fled pogroms in either Russia or Poland, depending where the borders were at the moment. And money was a huge factor in my grandma Pauline's upbringing.

And she was treated like the servant to her mother while her brothers got to go play jacks in the alley. And throughout her life, Pauline's life, she had this push-pull relationship with wanting affluence and feeling uncomfortable about affluence. And so I said, you know, that kind of experience of being really wealthy somewhere else and making the choice for safety over money, that...

really is a great starting point for how a family might relate to wealth going forward. So I kind of took the skeleton of my own family story and gave that to Bea. And then the other is that I gave Bea this really tight group of girlfriends that were all super supportive of one another. In The Lobotomist's Wife, she kind of had no friends. She was one of these like trailblazing women who had one friend, but was very, it was sort of like,

Jon (45:18)
Got it.

Samantha (45:37)
her success came at the expense of having relationships with others because what she was doing was so anomalous in the world. I didn't want that for me. And what I have found since I started writing, because I started writing as a very second career, is that I have this group of friends that are writers that are just all in it with me.

and we are all just in support of one another and looking to lift each other up and understanding that this is a really hard and soul crushing business. And the last thing you want is other people who do what you do, crying at you and trying to tear you down. But instead you want to do everything you can to lift each other up. And I feel so loved and supported in this world. And I wanted to capture that feeling of how empowering strong female friendships can be in the book.

Kristy (46:30)
For me, I also see it or how I interpret it was you see them not just lean on each other, but also network within their circles and the power that they did have in the 1920s as women. And we see that in men all the time, especially in that time period. this is what we have. We have the four of us and we're gonna make the most of it. And I just really love that dynamic between all of them.

Samantha (46:55)
Yeah. And that I think was more subconscious. You're not the first to have commented on it, but that is my approach to life is I'm a connector. I'm going to see somebody who should know somebody and has nothing to do with my life, but I'm going to say, you need to meet this person because they can help you do this, that or the other. And I, it's just how I think people should be to one another. So that kind of just came. It wasn't like I was trying to teach a lesson. Yeah.

Kristy (47:17)
I told you.

Jon (47:23)
Yeah.

Samantha (47:25)
But the overall book certainly has a lot of like fight the patriarchy and do what we can as women. And we haven't come as far as we wish we had kind of messaging, which I think I'll always have, because that's kind of who I am.

Jon (47:36)
Yeah. Well, want to be respectful of your time on a Saturday afternoon. Samantha, thank you.

Samantha (47:41)
It was great to meet you guys. You're awesome. I love what you're doing. I think it's really cool. Thank you. I'm going to tell my husband he needs to do this with me. It's really nice to have something so external and thought provoking that you can talk about as a couple. like it.

Kristy (47:49)
Tell him to read the books.

Yes, we really enjoyed it. Thank you. Enjoy the rest of your day. Bye.

Jon (48:02)
Have a great rest of the weekend.

Samantha (48:03)
too. Take care.

Bye.

Kristy (48:06)
Well, that was an absolute treat. First author on.

Jon (48:09)
Yes, it was.

Really appreciate her taking the time out to do that.

Kristy (48:14)
us. Thank you so much, Samantha. Again, we appreciate it. We loved your novel and I'm specifically looking forward to can't say that I'll make Jon read it, but I am also specifically looking forward to reading your other novel and anything you might have coming up in the future. Back to our regularly scheduled program. Jon, do you have any final thoughts on this book?

Jon (48:39)
No. We talk about all my thoughts. That's the whole point of the podcast. You're to say more. Oh, geez.

Kristy (48:48)
Would you recommend this book to our listeners?

Jon (48:50)
I would, even if you're new to historical fiction or maybe you don't think historical fiction is up your alley, think there Is that a bowling alley? I don't, was it? Up your alley. Oh, up your alley. Oh, I didn't even see. Good one. It was really enjoyable. As infuriating as the characters can be sometimes, I think what you learn along the way about them and just the way she-

Kristy (49:00)
difference?

Jon (49:18)
the story was really well done. So I would, I would recommend this one to anyone willing.

Kristy (49:26)
Anyone with a pulse.

Jon (49:28)
Yes.

Kristy (49:30)
that what your point about infuriating characters is that that's okay. Like that gives characters depth. Like, ⁓ man, trust me. Like I said, I to slap Jake. I wanted to slap Pauline. But guess what? We have Jake's and Pauline's in our life and they add dynamic to us. They add color to our world. And sometimes they the color out of it.

Jon (49:52)
That's true.

Kristy (49:58)
But I think when you are reading about that, yes, it's like this this this reaction to it. But in a way, that also makes for good writing, in my opinion, because not everyone is going to be amazing and awesome. Because life is not like that.

Jon (50:10)
For sure.

Yeah. Yep. I agree.

Kristy (50:18)
I am with you on the recommending it to our listeners if you liked the women which we covered if you liked the frozen river Which we did in season one. This is right up here. This is also right up your alley. I need a euphemism I Don't know simile. No, it's not a simile because that's like anyway This one's for you. And as Jon said if you're not sure if you like historical fiction, like I think this is a really approachable one I mean

Jon (50:36)
metaphor?

Kristy (50:47)
It's not very long. It was easy listening. It, I think, gives you a sense of maybe a time period that you may or may not be really familiar with. So I would absolutely recommend it. Nice. Well, we wanted to remind everyone that the next two books on our lineup are Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry, which I just finished. And I am so excited to talk to you about it. I have so many thoughts. I have some frustrating thoughts.

but I enjoy the book and I am looking forward to discussing it. And then we're going to do The Love Haters by Katherine Center. And that will be episode 10. So that will be the end of season two and we will pick up again in late summer, early fall.

Jon (51:34)
Crazy flying by.

Kristy (51:36)
Yes, but as always, don't forget that a free way to support our show is by leaving us a review or rating us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you're streaming this. But I guess that's it.

Jon (51:49)
That's it. It's another one in the books.

Kristy (51:52)
That is another one in the books. But who knows, maybe this will be the one your husband reads.

Jon (51:58)
Maybe.

Kristy (51:59)
He said with enthusiasm.

Jon (52:01)
I

did. I remember I'm a record reader. Yeah, forced. All right then, everybody. Wonderful night. Bye bye.

Kristy (52:07)
Take care.

Bye.

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