Alison Stewart: This is All Of It from WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. GQ says that this year's best coming-of-age novel is actually about adults. It's titled Early Thirties. The novel follows two millennials in New York City who are trying to figure out what their lives should look like. They There's Victor, fresh off a breakup with his boyfriend, who's entering a new career writing celebrity profiles at a prestige media company but doesn't feel like he fits in, and his best friend Zoe, who works in public relations but is questioning her career and her future lawyer fiance.

That guy, he's kind of a bro. Then there's a friendship between the two of them, which suffers as they grow in different directions. A Vogue review states, "Earlier Thirties remind you that every decade of life comes with its own change and challenges and will make you both laugh and cry as it does so. Earlier Thirties is out now. Joining us to discuss it is Josh Duboff, who is also a former senior writer at Vanity Fair, so you know what you're talking about. Hi, Josh.

Josh Duboff: Hi. Thanks so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Alison Stewart: Earlier Thirties explores advancement, shifting friendships, careers. What was a theme or a concept that you really, really wanted to write about in this novel?

Josh Duboff: I definitely was very excited to get at this transition moment that I feel like especially happens in New York at the end of your 20s, at the beginning of your 30s, where everyone feels like they're in the same boat. In the 20s, you're bouncing around job to job, boyfriend, girlfriend, boyfriend, girlfriend. You're trying to figure it out. Then it did feel to me in my own earlier 30s here working at the magazine I was and the career I was and the friend group I was in, the stakes get higher in your 30s. It starts to feel like the decisions you're making are setting up what the rest of your life might look like, and I thought that was a very interesting moment to try to explore in the book.

Alison Stewart: You worked as a journalist.

Josh Duboff: Yes.

Alison Stewart: When did you realize you wanted to write a novel?

Josh Duboff: I worked at Vanity Fair, as you mentioned. I was a senior writer for about six years and I had some really surreal, interesting, wild-

Alison Stewart: I'm sure.

Josh Duboff: -experiences in all sorts of places I would never have imagined I'd be in. The whole time I think maybe mentally, it's funny, I wasn't necessarily thinking, oh, this is someday I want to write a novel about all of this. It wasn't maybe that concrete in my head, but I for sure was taking notes maybe in my phone, mentally, or literally, and thinking about just these crazy experiences I was going through. Then when I did to leave in 2019, full-time working there, I was synthesizing in my head and thinking about it all, and I was like, you know what? I started writing personal essays, actually, first nonfiction, and my agent, who I'm so thankful for, read them.

He's like, "Really interesting stuff here. Have we thought about fiction? I feel like that might be very interesting and freeing for you." I'm so thankful for him for giving me. It hadn't been in my head and my conception of myself or something, but that got me off to the races into the novel.

Alison Stewart: What did your writing process look like? Did you write all those ideas down on cards? People have different ways they go about writing a novel.

Josh Duboff: Oh, my gosh, Alison. There's one point where I remember my brother came into my room, I think, and I had an index cards. I don't know if you've seen Homeland where Carrie Mathison, Claire Danes, has all the index cards up on her wall. I felt like I was losing my mind a little bit. The book's really about this core friendship, but to broaden the world, I brought in some people around them and other characters. I definitely needed to keep track of it all. The novel, when I was really in the throes of, it was also the beginning of COVID, so I feel like I was especially just in my zone there for that first year or two of really working on it.

Alison Stewart: How did your previous job as a journalist help you as a novelist?

Josh Duboff: That's really interesting. Obviously, there's very clear differences in what you're trying to do and your goals and what you're trying to achieve with the work, but I think it's interesting to me where when I was working at Vanity Fair and in my prior jobs too and writing celebrity profiles, I think a lot of it is really trying to understand what makes someone tick. It's me sitting across from someone at a restaurant and trying to crack them a little bit, like how's their private persona different than their public persona? How is how they engage with me one to one different from how they post on Instagram or how we see them on a red carpet?

That isn't so wildly different to me from what my approach was to crafting the characters in my novel because it was a lot of thinking about, on some level, all of us, we're all at varying levels of fame and notoriety, but we all are, on some level, no matter who we are, posting a certain way on Instagram, showing a certain side of ourselves to our friends in the world versus what's actually going on interior day to day. I think that was something I was thinking about with all these characters. There were some similarities I wasn't even expecting in terms of just thinking about how I view people and how I understand how people operate.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Josh Duboff. The name of his book is Earlier Thirties. It's a novel set in New York. Two people entering their 30s, trying to figure out what's what. Tell us about Zoe. Where's Zoe when you meet her?

Josh Duboff: Yes, oh, gosh. Zoe's in an interesting place. I relate to Zoe a lot, people assume, because of some of my biographical similarities to Victor who works at the magazine, that I would be more similar to him, but there's a lot of me and Zoe. I guess that makes sense because I made all these people up, but Zoe, I feel have a real connection with. She's in this job, as you noted, where she's unsure if this is what she wants to be doing. Something I can definitely relate to. At the beginning of my career, before I was working at a magazine, I was a consultant, a whole different life.

I was like, "This is a great path to be on, but is this where my heart is? Is this what I want to be doing?" There was a lot of Zoe's journey there that I was really maybe working through a little bit with our character, if we want to go that therapy with it. I think that there was certainly some of that in her. When we find her at the beginning of the novel, she's in this relationship as well with a guy she's engaged to named Tom. Tom is a very--

Alison Stewart: I don't like Tom.

Josh Duboff: Yes, I was going to say. I don't think he's the most winning, but it's interesting. I do feel like Tom--

Alison Stewart: No, he's a nice guy. He's a nice guy for the right kind of girl.

Josh Duboff: Yes, that's a beautiful way of putting that. I do think there's a certain, I don't want to spoil too much about what happens to Tom and Zoe in the book, but she definitely, at the beginning of the book, I think you are meant to say, like, "Is this who she's meant to be with? Is this right?" She has to come to her own conclusions, let's say, about if he is the person she wants to be with. That comes to a head a little bit as the book goes on.

Alison Stewart: When we meet Victor, he's not in the best state.

Josh Duboff: No.

Alison Stewart: Tell us a little bit about when we first meet Victor.

Josh Duboff: Yes, it's interesting because I think the book does have a lot of comedic elements and lightness to it, but there's definitely some darkness at the beginning. I do think when we meet Victor, he's in a bit of a tough moment, for sure. I was really interested in exploring, actually what we were just talking about, the private-public dichotomy. To me, where Victor he's starting this book where he gets this glamorous job, his life to outsiders, to his friends, maybe to his family, he looks idyllic. He's going through this mental health struggle at the beginning of the book.

Sometimes I feel like that's something I encounter all the time in New York, where people can seem a certain way, and then you learn more about them. Everyone has their story, everyone has what's actually going on maybe underneath that could complicate things a little bit. He has to work from there, but we meet him at a low point for sure.

Alison Stewart: You shift perspective in the novel. Tell us a little bit about your choice to do that.

Josh Duboff: My favorite, I don't know, have you read A Visit From the Goon Squad, the Jennifer Egan book?

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Josh Duboff: I remember that was the book I read where I was like, "Oh my God, this makes me want to write a thing." Just it made me want to be a writer. That was like maybe, I don't know, it came out, what, 10 or so years ago? It's a beautiful book. I could feel in her writing where it would start with one character, and then the next chapter would follow a side character that you had maybe encountered in the previous chapter in a small moment and maybe been curious about. The way she followed her curiosity, it felt like, was so exciting to me to read. I think maybe on some level, that was in my head when I was working on my book.

It would happen even organically. Victor and Zoe were the central characters and their friendship was the through line, but I would have these moments of like, "Wait, I actually like that character that we see Victor interview, the actress. I want to know more about her. I would actually. There's stuff that we actually cut where I would write all of her tweets. I would write her Instagram posts.

Alison Stewart: Oh, interesting.

Josh Duboff: I would write more material for a lot of these characters just because it helped me get in their head. Then some of that I was like, "Wait, this is actually interesting because I feel like we're seeing the other side of the coin with some of these people that we're encountering." I found it exciting to broaden the world a little bit and just to feel like they all overlap with Victor and Zoe, but they're also showing a bit of context of how they operate professionally, and the worlds around them.

Alison Stewart: We're talking about the book Earlier Thirties, a novel. It is by Josh Duboff. He's here to discuss. In the book, Victor and Zoe, they're specifically millennial entering their 30s. In the second chapter, you reference "Throngs of millennials in ill fitting suits jumping in unison to Mr. Brightside at a wedding in Miami." A lot of millennials are entering their 40s now, we'll say that.

Josh Duboff: I know.

Alison Stewart: How does the generation that Victor and Zoe are part of, what is their idea of success?

Josh Duboff: Ooh, that's a great question. I think it is shifting. I think they realize maybe it's become a different thing for them as they reach this moment in their 30s. I think it felt maybe a little bit clearer. I don't know, when you're in your 20s, things can feel very aspirational. I want to take over the world, I want to do this, I want to do that. Zoe has this moment for sure where it's a little bit more like, "This is who I'm going to be with for the rest of my life." It's a little less like, "Oh, I'm just having fun and seeing what's out there." The stakes just feel a little bit greater.

I think success for them, though, is definitely about, I think for Victor, he has to come to terms in the book, is it more about professional glory or is it more about personal contentment? They're both struggling with that, I think, a little bit. Obviously, you can hopefully have both, but I think balancing that, I think becomes actually an issue in their friendship a little bit.

Alison Stewart: Yes, it becomes an issue because Zoe asks a favor of Victor and Victor's like, "Can't do it."

Josh Duboff: Yes. I love that because I feel like that was so important to me to get at where they're in this friendship. They've been friends for a very long time. They're friends from college. They're each other's person, but then I feel like I've definitely encountered this in New York, especially in the media world, but in so many industries, I know this kind of thing happens where you're friends, but there's a bit of a like we might ask each other for favors. There might be a little bit of a like I help you, you help me to it. There's professional layers that get mapped onto some of these relationships that can make things tricky, that can make things feel a little bit stressful in a friendship dynamic.

I've definitely been in those situations and you're like, "Oh, God, this is a little awkward. How do I respond to this text message?"

Alison Stewart: Yes, it's really hard.

Josh Duboff: That can sometimes throw a friendship into a-- I don't know, I've had friendships get complicated because of that thing. I definitely felt like it was important for me that that was the first splinter for them, where it was something that seems maybe small on the surface, but actually gets it. Something that maybe is going to blow up into a bigger thing for them.

Alison Stewart: When we meet Victor, he's just broken up with his boyfriend. It's just happened 24 hours before we meet him. How does the breakup make Victor feel about himself?

Josh Duboff: I think he takes it really hard. I think he makes it a referendum on himself. I think he is prone to spiral, especially at the beginning of the book. I think he's looking for validation from others, so I think the breakup, it's hard for him to separate that there's another person involved, there's other factors that can be at play here, there's the rest of his life to live, there's other people that love him. He somehow takes it as a sign that he's not worthy of love. I think there's a lot of things going through his head at the beginning.

Then Zoe's there for him in a way that helps him through it, but I think also he doesn't want to unload on her necessarily in the way that hit might be healthier for him to do for to someone, but he keeps a lot of it inside, I think. I think we see that play out as the book goes on a little bit. Then he focuses a lot on the job. He focuses on distractions to try to get himself through.

Alison Stewart: What I thought was interesting is Zoe is a little different with her fiance.

Alison Stewart: Have you seen that?

Josh Duboff: [laughs] I don't know how much I should-- I know. I was going to say maybe I've seen it. No. Yes, for sure.

Alison Stewart: You know what I mean? She's just a little bit different.

Josh Duboff: I'm very, I'm sure you are as well, I feel like we know so many, I don't know if we know, I should say, I know so many people, but I definitely know friends where I love them, I've been friends with them for so long. Then I'll see how they act around a partner and I'll say to myself like, "Oh." You see a different side of them maybe. This can go both ways too. Maybe they act a different in a different friend's context or a different social context. Or you're in a professional context with them all of a sudden, and you're like, "Oh, wow, I'm seeing this whole other side of" whoever it is.

I do think that's something I feel like I've noticed, especially as people start. I have a lot of friends, especially in this earlier 30s period. They have families and things. You start noticing different energies maybe depending on who they've ended up with and what their lives have become.

Alison Stewart: Zoe's interested in her own business. What excites her about that prospect?

Josh Duboff: I think she wants autonomy. I think she is feeling like a cog in a machine. There's a important interaction early in the book where we see her navigating things with her boss a little bit, and her boss is supportive, but also a little bit dismissive. I feel like she's struggling, brushing up against that like, "I want to be my best self. I want to be present. I want to do things on my own." I think that's a very millennial thing I know a lot of my friends have struggled with too when you're in certain professions. She's like, "Maybe it won't go well, but I want to see what happens if I go for it on my own."

I think that is something that, I'm about to say I'm excited for her as if she's a real person. Yes, I was excited for her when she realized she wanted to do that.

Alison Stewart: All right, you've worked as a journalist. You have interviewed a million famous people. There are stories in this book. I have to ask, are some of these stories true, some of the things that have seeped into the book?

Josh Duboff: I think nothing one-to-one. I felt like that would actually be maybe not as even creatively exciting for me. It's not a, what do you call it? It's definitely not like a veiled memoir in that way or anything like that. I've interviewed so many different kinds of famous people and so many kinds of singers and actors and comedians, and almost everyone, I always say this to people, actually, almost everyone's really lovely. Maybe this is similar to your experience.

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Josh Duboff: Like you're coming in and people want to talk about their projects. I haven't had any horror stories or someone's slapped me in the face and walks. No one's pouring water on my head or anything like that, but you definitely encounter some interesting dynamics and people. I feel like it was all getting funneled into some of this stuff. Valentina Lack, the actress, character, a few people have asked me like, "Oh, no, who is she?"

Alison Stewart: Who is she?

Josh Duboff: I don't know. Actually, no, truly I can say, there was no one ever in my head where I was like, "This is this actress?" or anything like that.

Alison Stewart: The name of the novel is early, Earlier Thirties: A Novel. It is by Josh Duboff. Josh, thanks for coming to the studio to discuss your book. Congratulations.

Josh Duboff: This was so fun. It went by so quickly. Thanks, Alison, really appreciate it.