Amy Chozick discusses her debut, With Friends Like You—a twisty thriller set in New York that explores friendship, motherhood, and reinvention.
Amy Chozick discusses her debut, With Friends Like You—a twisty thriller set in New York that explores friendship, motherhood, and reinvention.
Editor’s Note: Today’s episode is marked as explicit.
We’re kicking off a truly special Book Gang episode with Amy Chozick, who brings both warmth and wit to the conversation around her fiction debut thriller, With Friends Like You. This intimate story is set in New York City’s hidden corners—a story of friendship, motherhood, and the reinvention that comes after everything changes.
Today we explore Amy’s transition from political reporting to penning a propulsive, confessional thriller about the high-wire act of modern motherhood and the secrets that shape our closest friendships.
In With Friends Like You, Emily is still reeling from a harrowing birth experience and struggling to find solid ground as a new mother in Manhattan. Missing the woman she was before, she is drawn into a search for her enigmatic former roommate, Daisy. When Daisy reappears with plans for an exclusive wellness center, old wounds are reopened, and the cracks in their friendship threaten to unravel Emily’s fragile world. Together, they create a space for New York moms—complete with IV vitamin infusions, nap rooms, and communal childcare—as they navigate secrets, betrayals, and the longing for connection.
With raw honesty and a fiercely contemporary lens, Amy unpacks her real-life inspiration, the transition from journalism to fiction, and the emotional terrain of motherhood, friendship, and ambition.
In this juicy conversation, we discuss:
📚 The Writing Journey: Amy shares how the Hollywood Writers Strike became an unusual catalyst for finding the time and headspace to write fiction. We discuss the questions that drove her from political reporting to fiction, the early premise, her path from outline to final draft, and what it’s like to land her first fiction book deal.
📚 Reporting as Inspiration: Amy discloses how many of her journalistic pieces ended up becoming important elements in her story, from the high-rise setting to reporting on Stormy Daniels, which gave her a firsthand look at secrets, power, and reinvention that now pulse through the novel.
📚 New Motherhood and Pelvic Floor Therapy: We delve into the realities of new motherhood and the absence of villages and third space for mothers, why pelvic floor therapy is a crucially under-discussed part of postpartum recovery, and how Amy’s fiction sheds light on the emotional and physical challenges faced by new mothers—topics that deserve more open conversation in both literature and life.
BONUS BOOK LIST: My Top Books of the Year (So Far) – I’m sharing the fifteen books that have wowed me after reading sixty-eight titles through June! Patrons receive a printable list and a sneak peek at two book club picks for our 2027 book club year.
Meet Amy Chozick
Amy Chozick is a bestselling author, screenwriter, and award-winning journalist who has covered the biggest stories in politics, business, and media for The New York Times. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Chasing Hillary, which was adapted into the HBO Max series The Girls on the Bus. Her writing has appeared in Vogue, Vanity Fair, and more. Amy is currently adapting With Friends Like You into a major motion picture with Fifth Season and Academy Award-winning producer Brad Weston. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and son.
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2026 MomAdvice Book Club Books (All 12 Selections)
Daughters of Shandong by Eve J. Chung
Inside the Creation of Daughters of Shandong with Eve J. Chung (Book Gang Podcast)
With Friends Like You by Amy Chozick
This Year You Write Your Novel by Walter Mosley
Chasing Hillary by Amy Chozick
Shark Heart by Emily Habeck
Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe
The Big, Controversial Business of The Wing, Explained
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
How the Pagebound App Reinvents Social Reading (Podcast)
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Book Gang Podcast Transcript:
Amy Chozick (00:01)
Hi, my name is Amy and I am the author of the novel With Friends Like You.
Amy’s Warm Introduction:
Hey, Book Gang! It’s always a good day when I get to bring you a book that absolutely blew me away—and today I’m so excited to be sharing the story behind my favorite thriller of the year. If you’re new here, hi! I’m Amy Allen Clark, the voice behind the Book Gang podcast, and I’m so happy to have you. This show celebrates debuts, backlist favorites, and under-the-radar book gems. As I continue my full immersion in the 2026 Summer Reading Guide, I’m thrilled to shine a spotlight on some of my favorite picks from this year’s selections, like this one!
This special guide is available for purchase, featuring a handpicked collection of 70 titles—upcoming releases, buzzy debuts, and new-to-me backlist treasures—spread across 57 pages to help you build your perfect summer stack. It’s an instant download for $7, and every purchase helps keep the lights on at Book Gang.
At the time of this recording, I had 35 books under my belt in preparation for our guide, but by the middle of the year, I’d finished 68—and With Friends Like You by Amy Chozick, then and now, still stands as one of my very favorites. This is a darkly twisty thriller set in the corners of New York City, where friendship, motherhood, and reinvention collide.
Let’s talk about why this book is a standout. In With Friends Like You, we meet Emily—a new mom still reeling from a traumatic birth and struggling to find her footing in Manhattan’s relentless maze. Her attempts at recovery—including uncomfortable sessions with a pelvic floor therapist—leave her unsettled about how her body has changed through this bewildering process that looked nothing like the birth experience she thought she was going to get. Shouldering most of the newborn care, all while trying to keep her precarious job as a grant writer afloat, the family’s strained finances put a dedicated nanny just out of arm’s reach in Manhattan.
Missing who she was before motherhood, she finds herself searching, once again, for the college roommate who has disappeared from her life. Emily shares, “I could describe Daisy in a lot of ways, but I guess the simplest way is to say that she was my first love. Not in the romantic sense but in the even more fleeting type that only happens among a certain type of adolescent girls- one magnetic, the other malleable. Even now, so many years later...I’ve never felt more spiritually, and instantly, platonically connected to another person than I did to Daisy.” You see, Emily and Daisy, once thick as thieves since they were kids, have lost touch after she went down a slippery slope dancing at a strip club to pay for her tuition, and then everything went dark as the underbelly overtook her life.
When effortless, glamorous Daisy suddenly reappears in her orbit, she has unique plans to launch a wellness center of sorts, in an empty high-rise, using her connections from her dark past, and she’s looking for clients. Who better to fill those spots than the women from Emily’s online mom forums? The two create an experience to fill the gaps in these women’s lives, offering IV vitamin infusions, Botox sessions, places to nap, and stimulating, communal activities for their kids.
But as the friends navigate this new partnership, old wounds resurface, and the cracks in their friendship widen once again. Is Daisy truly the answer Emily’s been seeking, or the force unraveling her fragile world? And where has Daisy really been all these years?
Every minute I was away from this book, I wanted to be back at it to see where these two friends were going. Gritty, confessional, and razor-sharp, do not miss this incredible debut full of riveting surprises and an ending that will get your book clubs talking.
Categorically, I do not consider myself a big thriller reader—mainly because I crave stories with heavier substance, not just fast, furious page-turners. That might be why I’m so bothered that the only thriller the world seems to be talking about this year is Yesteryear. I hope the tide turns when readers finally discover With Friends Like You, an impeccably paced thriller that, dare I say, deserves the Gone Girl comparisons.
Chozick, while new to fiction, is no stranger to the literary scene. An award-winning journalist, she penned the memoir Chasing Hillary (about her coverage of Clinton’s campaign), which was later adapted into the HBO Max series The Girls on the Bus. What makes Amy’s journey even more fascinating is how the Hollywood Writers Strike became an unexpected catalyst for finding the time and space to write fiction. We’ll also talk about how her reporting on Stormy Daniels for Vogue planted the seeds for this story, giving her firsthand insight into secrets, power, and the art of reinvention. And in a more human-to-human conversation I’m so grateful we get to have, we get real about why pelvic floor therapy is a crucial, under-discussed part of postpartum recovery, and why these conversations matter so much.
Before we dive in, a quick reminder: my list of the top books of the year—including With Friends Like You—is available for free on Patreon, along with a printable checklist, bonus book recommendations, and exclusive chats with our featured authors. This month, patrons can dive into a 33-page guide and Podcast with Get Booked With Larry, featuring our reviews of 15 titles recently published in our FULLY BOOKED newsletter, available to read or stream as a podcast.
And don’t forget—this month’s book club selection is Daughters of Shandong by Eve J. Chung. I’ve loved seeing your five-star reviews and can’t wait for our discussion on July 30th at 8 PM ET. Membership is just $5 a month, with a 10% discount for annual signups.
Now, let’s officially meet this week’s guest:
Amy Chozick is a bestselling author, screenwriter, and award-winning journalist who has covered the biggest stories in politics, business, and media for The New York Times. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Chasing Hillary, which was adapted into the HBO Max series The Girls on the Bus. Her writing has appeared in Vogue, Vanity Fair, and more. Amy is currently adapting With Friends Like You into a major motion picture with Fifth Season and Academy Award-winning producer Brad Weston. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and son.
With Friends Like You, published by Dutton, hits bookstore shelves on July 21st and is available for pre-order now. If you enjoy the show, please consider leaving a written review on iTunes—it’s a quick, free way to show your support. And to our patrons who keep the lights on at Book Gang: I am wishing you a village for support. Thank you for being the village this show needs to survive and supporting human creators in a world turned upside down by AI.
Now let’s get chatting…
(transition music)
Amy Clark (00:07)
Amy, welcome to the BookGang. I'm so happy to have you here and very excited to share your debut thriller with our audience.
Amy Chozick (00:14)
Thank you so much. I'm super excited to be here.
Amy Clark (00:17)
Well, I know I'm hitting you with a really hard question here, but I know you have covered a ton of politicians and have asked some very tough questions. And you're asking us now to follow Emily and Daisy into some very twisted corners of New York. I want to know what's more nerve wracking, covering a presidential campaign or writing a debut thriller?
Amy Chozick (00:20)
God, no question. I had so much fun writing this book. It felt like a vacation for my mind. I mostly, after covering politics, the last campaign I covered was 2016. I've been writing screenplays and for TV and movies. So even that's much more formulaic and restrictive than writing a novel. But certainly, like when you're on deadline trying to write a story about a debate or some news that happened and you're on the back of the campaign bus, there isn't a lot of space for creativity. You don't exactly live a writerly life. It is an exciting, fun, never dull life. So I really enjoy really getting into my own head every day. It's kind of the opposite of reporting where you're in five different cities a day. running all over. You're surrounded by people. It's just like you're alone in your pajamas with your thoughts writing the novel, but it was a lot of fun and really kind of a vacation for my writer brain.
Amy Clark (01:36)
I love that. I mean, were you thinking in the back of your mind, this may be a screenplay, so I may have to help with the adaptation. Do you have that kind of running in the back of your mind because of that background?
Amy Chozick (01:46)
Well, I was really just thinking like, God, I hope someone wants to publish this, you know, like as a novel. But certainly, I've been trying to train myself to write screenplays. So I think I was thinking more of like, I do think I think about it as like a three act structure. And I think I think about character and dialogue maybe more than like, just someone who only writes novels, like certainly that the medium was in my head. And I of course, I wished I, I thought it was cinematic while I was writing. I'm it, but I just really wanted someone to publish the book as I was writing it.
Amy Clark (02:21)
I love this. Well, I want to hear about the seeds of this story. Tell me how this all started and what your process looked like for this book.
Amy Chozick (02:29)
Yeah, I mean, it's been I always have random ideas and it's like the ideas that stick with you. Like you're still thinking about them three years later, you know, at night you're like, that could be a book. So this was one of those ideas.
When I first had my son, I was living in New York and I was probably like three weeks postpartum and Vogue asked me to profile Stormy Daniels. And this was right when she just became really famous with the Donald Trump stuff. and so the first time I left my baby was to go to strip clubs in Milwaukee.
And I was like following Stormy around and talking to sex workers and the only real interviews she had done were in adult magazines. So I'd ordered all these like Penthouse and Playboy on eBay and my husband came home one day and he was like, were you interviewing nannies with those like on the coffee table? And I was like, they're research. What are you talking about? He's like, this is fucking, this is weird. I don't know if you can curse or anything,
Amy Clark (03:19)
You can, it's fine.
Amy Chozick (03:21)
but he was like fucking weird, like they're gonna think we're fre- we're weirdos and I was like, and then I don't know why but those two worlds just like new motherhood and sex work like kind of stayed in my mind as like people are always kind of like commenting on your body and you feel really exposed and it's almost like your performance it's performative like there was there were all these things that were like in one hand they're completely incongruous. Like the last thing you think about after you have a baby is like you know that intimacy, but at the same time there were like all these kinds of similarities and I just thought what a weird that would be cool to like merge those worlds and so that was kind of in my head.
And then at the same time I had a, I did have a roommate in college under very different circumstances who got into like adult videos and kind of a dark path and she sadly passed away. And I was really spinning because I felt like we were really the same person. Like we were super close when we lived together and I just felt like we were the same person. Like just one little thing goes wrong in your life. Her dad had stopped paying her tuition. It's like, like young women don't really need that much to go wrong for you're on a completely different path. So I was really like spinning that, of course she could have been me and like we're the same. I don't know. So I think it was the combination of those things. I just thought new mom goes looking for her roommate who became a sex worker and kind of what goes on from there.
I mean, the other thing is we moved to LA probably three years ago when I first and I missed New York so much. But I also like in LA kind of had the space, mental space to write. So I think part of it's like just kind of living in it was fun to live in New York in my head.
Amy Clark (05:05)
I bet. I bet. You know, that is like a dream city for me.
Amy Chozick (05:09)
Sorry, that's a long answer.
Amy Clark (5:10)
No, the long answers are the ones we're chasing. So please keep them long, keep them very long. I want to hear all about this process. You know, you come up with this really creative concept and you know, even though New York is such a prominent part, you also have Texas in there too, a little bit, didn't you?
Amy Chozick (05:19)
Yeah, I mean, I was trying to think where they were from. And like, I think as a journalist, you always want authenticity. And of course, I've spent a lot of time in Ohio and all over the country covering campaigns. But then when I decided where Daisy should be from, I just thought she should be from Texas. I'm from San Antonio. Daisy's from Houston. I just thought like that felt like I could write from the most authentic place there.
But also, I think there's something about like kids that grow up in New York versus someone who moves there to kind of make their life happen. And I wanted her to be in that other category of kind of because I think also and you get this in the book, like it's harder and harder when I moved to New York to be a writer, I had like no job, no apartment. had a stack of clips. I was just like, you could still find an apartment on Craigslist. I remember going out. Yeah, I ramen for dinner, but I had a pretty good life. I didn't have my parents helping me. I had a good, you had that formative New York 20s. You didn't need a trust fund to enjoy the city and be a writer. And so I think that's harder and harder. And the people, as for someone who doesn't have like fam, like any, any kind of safety net. And so I also wanted to kind of capture that in Emily and Roman. Like they both have jobs. They're not like, they're not poor, but they're still really struggling.
Amy Clark (06:27)
Yeah, yeah. Well, as a girl in a Midwestern town and seeing what my kids, my Gen Z kids are going through, I think all people can relate to that experience. You don't even have to live in a city, like a big city like that to understand the hardship and how hard it is to do without having the help of your parents. I mean, I honestly don't know what the life will look like for my kids to be able to be independent. And so I loved that element. I like that, you know, you're coming from somewhere else, you move to the city, and of course you have big ideas about what it means to live in and I thought you executed that really well.
I'd love to dig in a little bit to your process. So from draft to finish and just a little bit about your experience. Now you have written a memoir so you may have had more connections than our typical debut novelists but I'd love to hear about the process of getting there with this book.
Amy Chozick (07:22)
Sure, yeah, I had never really, I always wanted to write a novel, but you have to write the whole, in a non-fiction book, for my non-fiction book, it was, I wrote a proposal. It's like 50 pages, sample chapters, here's what I wanna do, and an agent's like, we can sell it on a proposal. And that felt doable to me. I always wanted to write a novel, but it was like, well, you have to write the entire thing before you know if anyone wants it. And I just, I started one, and I never finished it. It's like, I always had work that pays me. I never could justify spending so much time.
Then there was the Hollywood writer strike and I would go picket on the picket line with the other writers guild and to try to, you know, pay us a fair wage in Hollywood. But meanwhile, it was like you couldn't do that work. So I thought I should just start this novel. like if I'm not going to start it now and I'm not allowed to do my other work, then when will I start it? So I start, I sort of started really thinking about it during that time. And then I then by then I had an agent who was like, it sounds like a cool idea, but like you really have to land the plane. She was like, I'm sorry, you really have to write the whole book.
But at least I had a great agent believing, Suzanne Glock. She's amazing, believing in me enough to say like, there's something here, finish it. And I think that's what I needed to really spend my nights and weekends to finish a draft. And then from there, she did a lot of editing, which is awesome because a lot of times editors don't have time to edit or agents don't have time to edit. She did a lot of editing. I mean, probably spent six months trying to get it to like, you know, she had a high standard for taking it out. And I'm really grateful she did. And then we shopped it around. But yeah, it was like I just needed that push of to just start it. I also, I don't know if you've ever listened to Walter Mosley's This Is the Year You Write Your Novel.
Amy Clark (09:29)
No.
Amy Chozick (09:29)
I highly recommend it if anyone wants to write a novel because it's just like, I mean, for one, I was like, he doesn't have children because he was like write every morning and I was like, who is packing the snacks? Who is brushing the teeth? So, but, it is very, it was very informative. It was very good because he's just like write every day, you know, and I listened to that in the car and just like that actually also helped me kind of get in the mindset of there's just get the words down.
Amy Clark (09:38)
Yeah.
Amy Chozick (09:57)
I also had my late mentor at the New York Times, David Carr, who was a columnist who passed away several years ago. He used to say, keep typing until it turns into writing. So I always thought that was good advice. Like, it doesn't matter if what you're sitting down and doing is like not good, just keep at it. So I did that. I tried to do that.
Amy Clark (10:16)
It's so funny, like not funny, haha, but just interesting that, some of the biggest hardships like the pandemic and, you know, you're talking about a writer's strike ends up igniting a different kind of timeline for you for a creative project because, a lot of our writers, I mean, we had such a big boom of people that came out of the pandemic with these incredible ideas that they've always wanted to do, but never had time and things like just not having a commute or, you know, things at work, responsibilities change, all of that can just be a catalyst for people in creative seasons and it's interesting to hear that that was your catalyst.
Amy Chozick (10:46)
Yeah. I think that's an interesting way of putting it and I love that. It's so true because something that could be a really dark time and like was a really dark time, can you find something productive? Whether that's, you know, taking up a sport or starting your novel. I think that's right. And I've always thought of like, every time I've had something like difficult, I always found, because this was always what I enjoyed doing, was good, was like, your way out of it. was sort of like, just write your way out of it. You know, it's like when I was, an assistant at the Wall Street Journal when I was in my early 20s, and I really wanted to become a reporter, and I was like, well, just write the stories and you will like, so I've always had this attitude, like if something isn't going right, just like buckle down and write. And so I think yeah, otherwise you lose your mind.
Amy Clark (11:43)
Yeah, yeah, no, I get it. So I'm wondering, did you have to unlearn anything as a journalist to write fiction?
Amy Chozick (11:51)
I think you really, I think you do. Again, I'm quoting my late mentor David Carr, but he used to say you have to go to a magical place where writers live. I think that, but I think that was more true when I wrote my memoir because my memoir was non-fiction, it's called Chasing Hillary. It was about my time as a political reporter, primarily covering Hillary Clinton for 10 years, and it was very my own voice. So it was like kind of journalistic, but you had to get The New York Times voice out of your head, because obviously if you work on a staff of newspaper you write in their style mostly. So I did find my, for lack of a better expression, find my voice. But I think for the past like four or five years as I've been writing, because I adapted that book into an HBO Max series called The Girls on the Bus. Like I have been writing in my own voice for a long time. So I think I had to unlearn that, unlearn the journalism and more in my first book.
In this book, it's almost like I had to unlearn screenwriting in this book because when you're writing a script, you're also responsible for the budget and for the production, especially television. And so I would see you'd start a scene, you'd be like, nobody's gonna pay for this car chase or nobody's gonna like, this is totally unrealistic that we're gonna be able to cast this or, know, you're always thinking about that. So you're kind of restricted in writing a screenplay to like what is produceable, you know? And I think I had to get that out of my head because like I could write any, I could write anything in a novel. Like it's like nobody has to pay to make the, you know, to make the thing. So that was something I had to kind of get out of my head.
Amy Clark (13:16)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's interesting because we've had a few screenwriters on here and and what their hurdles were and also what made them shine and we hosted Emily Habeck for a book called Shark Heart and she it's like a shark mutation that affects a man and it changes his life and she as a screenwriter that would cost bazillions of dollars, right? In a book, you know, she could just do whatever she wanted in her imagination, not worry about it.
But I also think a superpower with someone who has worked in screenplays is that you maybe are able to handle ensemble casts and bigger casts better than someone who is not accustomed to working, you know, like who's working in the background, what's happening behind them, and that also comes into play with your draft as well.
Amy Chozick (13:48)
Thanks. I thank you. It's interesting. I feel like the novel is so like Emily's perspective and it's just kind of like Emily's fever dream and I feel like it's like I've definitely read and admired like novel, sweeping novels with tons of characters. I feel like that's a little bit less. I feel like one of the things about screenwriting is that the dialogue is all very like subtext, like characters never you can never say what you mean. It's all like very kind of subtext and short. And I think in a novel you get to explore a character's inner life a lot more. Like I'm adapting this now for screenplay. And it's like very hard to express all of Emily's internal, you know, even with voiceover to like really get into a character's mind in a screenplay, you have to have a lot more tricks up your sleeve, you know, versus I think in a novel you have the luxury of like, could just go in like a tangent of prose to explain how the pelvic floor therapy fell or, you know, oh God, oh God.
Amy Clark (15:03)
Yeah, I love that. Well, I want to know, was your family surprised you took this adventure and what did you do to celebrate the yes when you got the book sold?
Amy Chozick (15:24)
Aww. My family, it's interesting. I feel like I don't really talk about my creative life. I do with my husband, but not much. I don't really like to talk about things until they're done and they're actually coming out in the world. Because I feel like so much can change. I never want to jinx anything. Or I feel like, I don't know. I feel like I just need it to be mine until it's not going to be. So no, I think everyone knew I always wanted to write creatively and explore writing a novel.
The yes was like, I just remember like, my God, I was so excited. We were so, did we do anything? I mean, sadly, I don't even know. I think we went out for tacos and a margarita with our, you know, our seven year old. I don't like, I don't think it was any huge celebration. But no, I was like jumping up. I was so excited, so excited and just couldn't believe it. Yeah.
Amy Clark (15:58)
I love that. Well, I want to get into this plot a little bit now that we know about your writing journey. I'm going to say I failed pelvic floor therapy and this is something maybe to TMI, I don't know. I tried it and I remember getting off of the table and saying, I can't do this anymore and I'll just pay whatever it is. And this is actually the first book that I think I've ever read where they detailed pelvic floor therapy. And I want to talk about this because obviously it is uncomfortable. It is intimate, it is expensive, and it's disorienting for Emily. I wanted to talk about how you wanted us to see these scenes and also the traumatic birth story that she goes through at the beginning and why those were important for launching her story.
Amy Chozick (17:06)
Well, thank you. Oh my god. I feel like we should form a support group and also like no one tells you this before you have a baby and then as soon as I started doing it all these friends women I'd meet were like, yeah, I had to do that. I did I was like real
No one told me this. Like, there's all these things that no one tells you. I mean, I think there's a line in the book that no one holds your hand through the afterbirth. It's like, I just feel like once you had a baby, once I, for one, I thought you either had a baby or a cesarean. I didn't know that like you could also have a very traumatic birth. I didn't, I just didn't really know. And I don't know why no one ever kind of explained it, but, but I didn't know. I mean, I was so naive. I was like, I'm going to have my book come out three weeks after I have a, I think a month should be fine. Like, like I thought I would be fine.
And I was really, really struggling. And I think no one really, so part of why I wanted to write about it is just because I don't feel like it's, it's talked about enough kind of, and I also feel like Emily is so alone. I mean, Roman is a good husband. I did not want to fall into the trope of like the terrible husband after you get, I'm like, he's a good guy. He just doesn't understand what's happening. And he's worried about his own job and he's stressed and he's worried about her. Like, I don't, I don't think he's a bad husband. I feel like I've seen that so many times in kind of postpartum things and I wanted him not to be. And so he's not.
It's just that like nobody really understands and I don't think anyone talks about it. It's like I'm getting emotional but like I just remember crying in the bathroom. I was in so much pain and everybody's holding the baby and they're like he's so cute and I was like my mom who like my mom would do anything for me, like didn't even notice that I was sobbing in pain in the bathroom. and all of a sudden I had this realization I was like oh
And I had it we had it good like a lot of women die like from all kinds of things after birth anyway, I just I just thought like for one I wanted I thought she had to have a trauma like she had to have a trauma and if you read the whole book you understand like why she had to have a trauma but and and then also just I think Increasing that feeling of alienation is like my body is not my own and the pelvic the finger rape. It was like...It's so aw- I mean, it's so awful and it's also physically awful, but also like, Emily, and I think I did, felt like she was failing every time. It's like, why isn't it getting tighter in there? And she's like, I don't know. that to me was like, why can't I even bathe my baby without dropping it? You, you kind of just worry about failing all the time. And I think when you feel like your body is failing you, it's so visceral.
So yeah, I feel like I was like, is this too graphic? The birth scene? But you know what? Then I was like, how many graphic war scenes have we seen? Like women, our body is a war, you know? And I think Emily is on really this kind of hero's journey to conquer these demons.
But instead of going off to some faraway location, her challenge is not how she leaves, but how she stays, how she finds a way to push through these demons and stay. Then Daisy saves her, no question.
Amy Clark (20:21)
Yeah, absolutely. I remember with my first child, I had a placental abruption and it was like a murder scene at our house. And we were living in a town where, yes, at home. And we didn't think it was a big deal. I was like, I don't know, like, I'm going to take a shower. You know, I was not in the mindset of like, this is an emergency. No one had ever expressed like, you know, there's this thing that they explain. There's bleeding. So I assumed that's what it was. But it was a crime scene in our home. I will, I will never forget it. And we got there and like, I had the baby like 15 minutes later and we had planned for this long day, you know what they set you up for and all the videos that we had watched. So when I got there and my husband was like, I'm gonna move the car, they said, you don't have enough time to move the car. You're gonna have this baby. I was so freaked out to do that. Yes, my first baby. And so, yes, it was awful.
And yeah, and what was the best thing is that we didn't have any family, but we had a church and those women came over and cleaned all the home up for us. We came back, it's like it had never happened. But I mean I do think like the ways that women step in when it comes to this friendship I can see how essential this was for her and that you do feel so alone. you know my kids are in their 20s now so it's a long long way for me. But I like it almost feels like an open wound like that I didn't know still existed to me 20 years later and reading those scenes and being like right back in it like it just happened.
Amy Chozick (21:55)
It’s a trauma. Like it's a, it's a trauma. It's a trauma that you're like not supposed to talk about because you're just supposed to be happy, have a healthy baby and just stop, you know, Oh my God, I'm so sorry. That's so, it's so traumatic. And it's like, yeah. And they definitely like prepared you for a cesarean or a long labor, but like no one told me about the forceps and the tearing and the like, it's really, I mean, imagine if men had to do this, the human race would have died out. But I think you're right I think. I love that your church group came through because I think that's also something that we're really lacking right now is community. And I think it's like we're all on our phones all the time, but you need like actual human connection. And I think having a baby makes you do that. The women you meet through your children are not necessarily women that you would have been friends with in your old life, but they're women you end up adoring, you know? And I think people are less religious now. Like places you typically find community have sort of like disbanded and it's really sad. I think that myth of the village is never and it's like I just thought I'm going to move to New York. I never realized I was like this is why people grow up a block away. My mom, I was raised like a block away from my grand, down the street from where my grandparents are. Like this is my husband too, he's from a village in Ireland. They all live around their extended family and I'm like Oh, this is why, you know?
Like it's really, you really, really need people. I think I really underestimate it and the cost of child care is insane, right now to have a nanny, but you have to have a job to pay the bills, but you have to have a job to pay the nanny. Like, it's just, it's no wonder that the birth rate is falling all over the industrialized world. Yeah.
Amy Clark (23:37)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it is just a vicious mindset to try to like, how do I, you know, fund all of this and also all the moving components about being a mother all like swirling in your head all the time. And yeah, you can never, you can never have, I think what we had maybe prior to social media and the things that have kind of stepped in to entertain us often leave us without the community support. I had a mom's group when my kids were little. And we went, I mean, we had something every single day. We went to the mall. You know, there wasn't anything exciting, but it was like every single day we went somewhere, we had coffee, and we would spend the entire day together. And yeah, I miss those days. It was a wonderful thing, but I don't know if other future generations will get to have those kinds of experiences if we don't build them for ourselves. And I think that's kind of where your app is coming into play, right? I would love to talk about, you know, there are a lot of things missing and Juju Bean is the app that is where she is forming that community and I want to talk a little bit about how you wanted that to shape up in your story.
Amy Chozick (24:43)
Sure, I mean there are of course these apps and I feel like there's so much like you don't ever really know someone, you're never really connected through a screen. It's like, just like, I think they like divulged into a fight at some point. It's like, it always becomes Twitter. Basically everything becomes Twitter, right? So it's like, you shouldn't feed them this. And I can't believe you put your kid in front of a screen and then you know what this does. And it's like, get together in person. And like some of these women who you think you have nothing in common with, like you'll actually like end up loving, adoring, and you need physical connection and you need to like, there's a scene in the book that I really love, which is they're all they did some mushrooms and they like, they're, they're all confessing their darkest secrets. And, and to me, it's just like, to find out that a woman you seemingly have nothing in common with you, has a very similar, you know, experience as a mother, it just kind of bonds you. And I think, yeah, I think that's why they take, we know when they take over the condo, it's like, you need that physical connection. And the app ends up a like a means to get together and if it's a means to like meet up if it's like we're on the whatsapp to meet up i think that's good if we're like on the app to fight and you know and compete and never really know each other bad so so
Amy Clark (26:01)
Well, I want to talk a little bit about a passage right at the beginning where we're getting to know the role of Daisy in the story. So the line says, “I had a baby and all of a sudden I started to think about Daisy. I had a baby and I wondered if Daisy had babies. I had a baby and I realized that she had been someone's baby when she stepped on stage in lucite stilettos and called me wanting heroin and showed up at my 20th birthday in Wet Seal, begging to be saved. I had a baby and I needed desperately in my bones to find out what had happened to Daisy.” Why do you see early motherhood as such this powerful catalyst for revisiting this friendship? And did you maybe excavate any of your own like shifts and perceptions in the ways that you view people in your life after having a child?
Amy Chozick (26:37)
I think I had like a weird hormonal surge of creativity after I had a baby. This is when I start, I was watching Rosemary's Baby a lot, which like, it's like crazy, but it's so visceral and scary when you're pregnant and have a baby. And I was watching a lot of horror movies and then I wanted to write a horror movie. Like it was a bad script. But I started reading poetry, like between having maternity leave and being hormonal. I started exploring parts of my personality I literally hadn't thought about since I was Daisy and Emily in college. I think it was less for me a person and more I just started I wanna sculpt, I wanna write poetry. I had like, I'm sure it was hormonal, but I definitely had a surge of wanting to do things that I hadn't thought about at the same time.
And then at the same time, I feel like you don't really realize it when you're in it. Like my son was like five when I started this, or four and a half, five when I started. You don't realize it when you're in it, but like the person you used to be is gone. Like you're not that person anymore. And I think that there is a mourning process about that, but also at the end you're like, I bet I like this person more, but there's definitely like Emily's still in that like mourning process. Like I'm not that person, but I don't really know who this person is. Like I think she said, we're all the same in this weird mom world that we live like they're on planet mom and and and so she hasn't really figured out how to exist in that world yet.
But she knows when her old friends invite her to meet up like for a 9:30 dinner at you know in the East Village she doesn't fit in in that world any either so I think she's still figuring out where she fits but I think every woman especially if you have your children a little bit later in life you're like I like that person I used to who was that who was that person. Like I don't even recognize that girl anymore. Bless her heart, you know. So I think it's partly that. I definitely felt that. I had been married like nine years and we had a kid. So we used to just both like, we'd each do our own thing and then we'd go out sometimes and we, and it's like your whole life is completely different.
Amy Clark (28:55)
It's true. Yeah, I had kids very young. And so yeah, we never had that time on our own. And now we're trying to figure out what that looks like now that our kids are big, right? So I feel like either end you're sacrificing something and trying to figure out who you are in all of those different stages, because now I'm learning that my home is empty. You know what I mean? There are aspects of it that you miss. And you know, I long for the days where they were there. But when they were there, I was also longing for the days where I was alone you know, so there's always that, you know, swirling around, obviously.
But I want to get a little bit into Daisy's history. You do have her as a sex worker, and I think that informs a lot of aspects of her resourcefulness, her confidence, her worldviews. How did you approach writing her experiences authentically while also making her a very fully realized, sympathetic character that we could latch onto?
Amy Chozick (29:26)
Well, I interviewed a lot of sex workers for the Stormy story and for other, I've done some other reporting. So I've talked a little bit to sex workers. I also read a ton of, like I love the LA Public Library and I read a ton of memoirs. I referenced some of the books even that Emily checks out, books about sex work, about memoirs of sex workers and there's some really great ones. So I really did, like, I approached sort of all of this, whether it was mental health or the sex work angle as a journalistically. So I did as much research as possible talking to people and reading because I really wanted to present it both kind of realistic and respectfully.
But I think you're right. Daisy has a lot of things that only is lacking. But there is an entrepreneur. There's a grit and an entrepreneurialness and a resourcefulness like a survival instinct. And I think it's something like your kids are in their 20s, I'm thinking about this raising, I'm like, are we raising like coddled children? Like you just want your kid to be able to make it like, like be resourceful, overcome obstacles.
People can judge how Daisy did it, but she like did it like she pulled herself up from like nothing to have a really interesting life to have a 35 million dollar condo. so she did it. So there's like a resourcefulness to her that I think Emily really admires because Emily's like slumming it in this job that she hates. She wanted to become a writer and she's just like writing grants in a cubicle. And she didn't do it. And I think she was scared of it. And I think Daisy is, I think deep down she has a lot of fears, but on the surface she seems fearless when Emily meets her.
Yeah, I also think there was something about that I wanted to tap into something that I got at when when I was talking to Stormy is there was like a defensiveness about women in particular liberal women who'd be like poor thing she's a sex worker. She's like, this is what I want. I'm good at it. I direct my own movies. I'm a fucking boss like stop judging like there was like she very understandably defensive about like kind of judging her and I think there's a moment in the book when Emily is like I wish I'd been there and she's like, I'm fucking fine. I don't need you. I'm fine. All right. Stop like judging me. You think you're better than me. You're not. Like this is how I, this is like the oldest profession, right?
And so I wanted to get at that, this kind of like voyeurism. Like Emily kind of like hesitates to ask Daisy anything about her work. She doesn't want to be like a voyeur, but Daisy like owns it. And she's a very self-assured, confident figure in Emily's life. And she's not gonna take anybody's sympathy, which I appreciated.
Amy Clark (32:34)
Yeah, I love characters that kind of make me think in those ways. I am thinking about Margo's Got Money Troubles where she, did you love it?
Amy Chozick (32:39)
I love that book. Love. I haven't watched the TV show yet, but I'm dying to.
Amy Clark (32:49)
I know it was so good. But yeah, I think it's coming out pretty soon and it's so crazy because, you know, I think about, you know, from a strategic standpoint. I'm like she's so smart. She learned how to make a fan base. She needed to do all of these things and thinking about it as a more of a business and using her father, you know, to help her kind of fuel that. And I think I know I think this is such a great exploration because it is about like how do you cultivate those kinds of things and even in this case with this character you know she's a strong independent woman who has figured out a way to make it work and and she did and so we get to just follow along on that adventure.
Now of course I gotta get into the property itself. I'm curious about this. Tell me a little bit about it. First of all she's living in a multi-million dollar apartment. It is purchased by a billionaire as a vehicle for moving offshore funds. So did any real-life help inspire this.
Amy Chozick (33:38)
For sure. Again, like everything in this book is journalistic, right? So like The New York Times, my friend Louise Story broke a story years ago about how real estate had become the new tax shelter for global billionaires. If you live in New York, you've noticed a proliferation of super tall skyscrapers that are crazy expensive condos. And I'm fascinated by these because they're all like they're almost there. A lot of them are vacant.
Like they're just owned as pied-à-terres or investment properties and like there's one building in particular That has had a lot of problems. Like it looks so cool It's made out of limestone but the limestone is cracking and the building is swaying and it's like and I thought there was something like so interesting about like a luxury tower that from the outside you're it's like looming and I wanted this building to really loom over the story the way like the Dakota does in Rosemary's baby, or if you watched Somewhere, the Sofia Coppola and the Chateau Marmont is like, I wanted it to be like a character, the the tower. Because I think from the outside, you're like, my God, I wish I lived in there. Can you imagine how great it would be in there to have that? And then you go and then it turns out it's like held together with scotch tape.
One of the stories I read, the hot, there's a garbage chute to drop your garbage and on the really high floors when they drop garbage, it sounds like a bomb for the lower floors when it hits the ground. Like they were all just this is like engineering things that nobody thought about. So for one, I was like, this is fascinating because it's like what did I say? I was like, it's like a Potemkin village. You know, it's like it looks like amazing. Then you go and also these places have crazy facilities like the childcare, the playrooms, the movie theaters, the golf simulators. And then there was an article in the Times that I really liked that while I was reading, I was like, I'm putting this in. Some of them have Michelin starred restaurants for residents and residents are required to spend a certain amount on it, but they're empty. So they have like these Michelin starred chefs with no one to cook for.
And I just think it's so symbolic of our era of inequality that here you have homeless shelters that are full and luxury retail, luxury real estate that is empty. You know, it's like what is happening in our society. And again, I'm glad you live outside New York because it's not just a New York thing. It's everywhere. It's like it just feels like the .001% are getting more and more and it's just more impossible for people to live. So it's like I just love the idea that like these moms and they're like middle, they're like upper middle-class moms. Stuytown is a nice place to live. You know, it's like you're great if you're apart score an apartment in Stuytown. But they're still like going around nowhere to go during the nowhere to pee nowhere to change a diaper And it's like whoo. This is just sitting there empty? Like what? You have a minimum you have to spend?
So it's funny because I was talking to some producers here and it was like they thought it was so all fiction. I started sending them all these links and now one of them is like sending all these tik because there's TikToks dissecting these buildings like it's a thing. no it's real and it's like every time my neck gaped up thinking I'd love to live in one of those. Yeah, I guess it's like that part of the book to me should really feel, hopefully feel like wish fulfillment, you know?
Amy Clark (36:54)
Yeah, for sure. You know, it's so funny that you keep bringing up Rosemary's Baby. Did it feel a little gothic doing this? Do you see this as a modern gothic?
Amy Chozick (36:59)
Yes. I'm gonna call it that - a modern gothic. I love it
Amy Clark (37:04)
Yeah. I feel like the setting when you're talking about it, I'm like, when you really think about it, it does fit in the modern Gothic. Yeah, it is. It is. It is a little bit. Well, obviously inside we have so many experiences for the moms and I would like for you guys to hear this. We have Botox sessions, nap rooms, Swedish formula, matcha on tap, IV infusions. What would you want? What's your like, if you could go there, what would you be indulging in?
Amy Chozick (37:09)
Ooh, it depends on my day. I'd be like, some days I'd be like, give me a little Botox. Or some days I'm like, how about those GPL ones? But no, leaving your baby with someone you trust, whose background checked, who can teach them Mandarin, I'm just kidding, but that's a perk. I think it's the, honestly, of all the things I would have wanted when I was a new mom, it's the playroom - two hours of like, you know, peace and just to like think about your take a shower, shaver. I mean, it's sad that all these amenities and the one I want is, but the quality, affordable childcare, you know, is like, I would take that over Botox, you know? So I think that is the thing that I I mean, there's a line in the book that it's like, Virginia Woolf was wrong. Like a woman doesn't need a room of her own. We just need three hours with no one asking for a snack, you know? So. So I think the childcare, but honestly, like I'd love a sound bath. That sounds fun.
Amy Clark (38:41)
Ooh, that does sound fun. Yeah. I was dreaming. I mean, I don't have any kinds of places like this in our town, but maybe they do exist and I just don't know it. I feel like we just have like, our exciting stuff is that we finally have concierge care for people and you know, they, guess you can go to like med spas and get different kinds of services like that. But yeah, it's fun to imagine like having all of that. I think this really speaks to the fact that people don't have third spaces and you know, the need for that from others especially.
Amy Chozick (39:13)
Yeah, the third space for sure. And also, this has happened since the book came out, but there's really a New York proliferation of private clubs. It feels like if you want to go out to dinner, it's a private club. It's like a membership club. It feels like everything's like a membership club now. So it's a little bit that too. But also like, I don't know, when I was pregnant, The Wing was still a thing. Remember that? The women's space. So it's like a space for just women to go.
Amy Clark (39:24)
Yeah, I love that. My space is Panera Sips Club. That's the only club I can afford and belong to. Like, nice internet. Yeah, that's all I have. Well, you know, obviously you're in the thick of the screenwriting process. Tell me a little bit about what this has been like for you and how exciting it was. So this was sold then later or did it get sold as a package?
Amy Chozick (39:41)
No, it's weird. I mean, Hollywood actually heard about the book before it was published, and I had like interest in that. But I was like, let's see if it's going to be a book first. But so it wasn't sold as a package. It was sold. I sold the book rights and then I met with a bunch of producers and studios and ended up doing it with a producer, Brad Weston, and Fifth Season as the studio. So it's been really great and really interesting kind of thinking about it, you know, as a movie and and kind of what the difference is. But I like that modern Gothic that might have to be our.
Amy Clark (40:35)
It's your new hook. You can take it. You can own that. Yeah.
Amy Chozick (40:40)
Yeah. There's a lot of like, I know. I mean, there's some things that I, when I was writing the screenplay, I was still editing the book and I was like, well, that's a funny line. Can I squeeze that line into the book? And I think, you know, I tried to do that. And then there was also just like a building of suspense in a screenplay that has to be so precise and surgical that kind of helped me go back while I was still editing the book and kind of build, hopefully build that in as well.
But yeah, it's usually when you're working on a bunch of projects, your head is sort of spinning with many characters because I've adapted other people's books or other IP as they call it here. And this was like, this was so fun. It's like I'm Emily and Daisy in screenplay, Emily and Daisy in, you know, it was the same. It's nice to be adapting it with my characters.
Amy Clark (41:23)
Yeah, I love that for you. Well, I want to ask if readers end up picking this for a book club and you could dream of anything for them to talk about, what would you like them to discuss from your book?
Amy Chozick (41:26)
I'd really love for them to discuss female friendship. And I also think I'd love for there to, I don't know if you read The Bee Sting, but I loved that book, Paul Murray, Paul Murray. It's my book club pick this month. But the ending, like I was dying to discuss that ending and I didn't want to ask anyone. I was like posting and so I'm like, so anyone read this so we can discuss the ending, no spoilers. So I hope people discuss the ending. I hope they debate it. I hope they debate, yeah, female friendship.
And I don't want this to sound too political, but honestly like motherhood in this era of inequality and capitalism, and I think is another aspect that I hope that they discuss. I love just talking to you about your postpartum experience. I really don't like, and you haven't done this at all, so thank you. I hate that when they try to make books like Mommy Lit. I think hopefully this resonates. I've definitely talked to people who have enjoyed the book that are not mothers, but if it, I think it's that, like you said, when your kid's left for college, it's like any kind of transition in life when you like kind of shed who you used to be, I think, can apply. And that applies could be anyone or any experience with, but to me it's like a, yeah, it's a psychological thriller set in the back. The catalyst for her change is motherhood, but it's not necessarily like only about that. Hopefully people can find, readers can find other things to relate to in there.
Amy Clark (43:02)
Yeah. Well, I'm going to tell you, there is a great app called PageBound and it's, it's independent, but you can, it's like Reddit just for books. So if you want to look at an ending or you want to read about other people's impressions, it's a great little like forum kind of thing. It's run by two women. They're incredible. And I just want to plug that because if you want to look up bee sting, you can look it up and you could get, yeah. Yeah.
Amy Chozick (43:07)
Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. good to know. Good. All right, I will, I was trying to go through Goodreads and I was trying to find discourse. Like I would love for this to be that novel where you finish and you're like, okay, I need to discuss. Okay, great, great.
Amy Clark (43:34)
Yeah, you will find it on that forum I bet you.
Well, my last question, which we always end our show with is what are you feeling proud of, whether it's with this project or with life in general? And it gives me a chance to say thank you, Amy. Thanks for taking a chance on this indie show to share your story. I am so excited for readers to connect with this. And I am telling you this, I know that there has been a lot of talk about whose thriller is the best thriller this year for 2026. And I've read, I don't know, at this point I'm at 35 books and this is one of my favorites. It is excellent. You surprised me. I think you guys are in for such a treat. It's a book that really did something to me. It was chaotic. It took me back into a very difficult stage of my life, but I'm so glad that I got to revisit it and think about the ways that I show up for other women. So I would love to hear what you're feeling proud of right now.
Amy Chozick (44:08)
Thank you. I love that. Thank you so much. Well, I'm very proud of that, of you having that reaction to my book. Thank you. Can I be proud of something that has nothing to do with my professional? My son just got into the gifted magnet for next year. He's in second grade and I'm so proud of him.
Amy Clark (44:35)
Yes, yes. I love that. I also have to say every mom always says something about their kids. No.
Amy Chozick (44:47)
Really? Okay, okay. I was like, is this cheesy? But you asked. This is literally what I'm proud of right now. And yeah, I'm super proud of that. I'm super proud that like the book has connected with you. And like, it's like, it's slowly starting to make its way into the universe. But what I've heard, knocking on wood has been positive. And I just like, I'm really, I'm really grateful and touched. So thank you so much. And it's one of those things with the novel, I feel like, you know, maybe it can like slowly like I just remember The Correspondent. It's like now it's like everyone's read. So I hope it's one of those things that you know women just start to kind of talk about and men we love you too. We love Roman. But readers just start to talk about and it can just start to slowly spread. So I'm just really proud when I hear from someone like you who's read it and enjoyed it. So thank you. And also like you're busy. You have a million books to read. So thank you. I really appreciate it.
Amy Clark (45:45)
There's no one else I'd rather spend an afternoon with. Thank you so much, Amy.
Amy Chozick (45:48)
Great talking to you. Bye.
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