13I do. It’s made me realize that I am probably
going to be just like my mom in some ways.
Even with my husband I can fi nd myself
interacting with him in the same way that
my mom used to drive me insane. Like, he
sunburns easily, and I feel anxiety about
knowing that he’s not wearing sunscreen.
I’m constantly harassing him about it, and
it makes me think, Oh, God, my mother
was like that. But I would like to believe
that I have the self- awareness of not want-
ing to be too demanding. Or being more
open. My mom was very unsupportive of
my creative career because she’d never
seen that work out for anyone. Coming
from a background where that did work
out for me, I think I’ll be able to be more
accepting when I have a kid than she was.
There’s a piece of advice that your mom
gives you in the book that I’ve been
thinking about a lot. She said that you
should ‘‘save 10 percent of yourself’’ as
a secret and not share it with anyone
else.^4 What I keep wondering about is
whether that’s actually good advice.
What do you think? I do. It was diffi cult
for me to understand until recently. There
are types of truths you tell that are about
unburdening yourself and putting that
burden onto someone else. That, I think,
is part of what my mom meant. It’s more
noble to keep certain things to yourself in
order to protect people, your loved ones.
I’m trying to think of an example to give
you. I can only think of something that’s
intense and serious or gross and weird.
You choose. OK, one would be if you’re
a parent that’s had aff airs^5 and you feel
burdened by that information and that
you should be honest with your child. But
there are some family secrets that some-
one doesn’t need to know even if it makes
you feel better to tell them. And here’s the
weird, gross example: A friend and I went
to this L.A. restaurant and had this deli-
cious Korean raw crab. But right as I was
leaving I saw the owner chasing a cock-
roach. I was thinking that I want to take my
husband back there but knowing there was
a cockroach would gross him out. Should I
not tell him so that he can enjoy the meal?
Or should I tell him because holding back
the information is burdening me?
That’s a real conundrum. It’s a stupid
example, but I don’t have a better one!
Here’s another conundrum: There was
a Times article about you right around
when the book came out, and it men-
This page: Scott Legato/Getty Images. Opposite page: From Michelle Zauner.tioned an article you’d written for
Michelle Zauner
performing with her
band, Japanese
Breakfast, in Atlanta
in April. Opposite
page: Zauner and
her mother in 1990.David Marchese
is the magazine’s Talk
columnist.the story of you two? I’m sure she would
have, like my dad, found something weird
that I shared that I didn’t know would’ve
bothered her. But I think I understand peo-
ple in the way she taught me. My mom
had a creative sensibility that went unex-
plored, and she really passed that on to me.
I think she would fi nd it moving. We were
moved by similar things. For instance, I
started crying in a Costco a few months
ago because I saw an old man dressing
the hot dogs and bringing them back to
his wife of 50 years or whatever. I looked
over at my husband and burst into tears
because I was like, I’m so glad I have you
in my life to do this mundane chore. That’s
something that would have, I know, also
moved my mom to tears. She would have
brought that sensibility into reading this
book. If someone else wrote the book, she
would’ve said to me in a chiding way, Oh,
I hope that when I die, you love me this
much to write something like that. Maybe
she wouldn’t have ever said that about my
book, but I think that she’d be proud.Th is interview has been edited and condensed
from two conversations.Harper’s Bazaar about your relationship
with your father. In the Times piece, your
dad — I know you two are estranged —
said that he felt he deserved more from
both the Harper’s story and your book. Is
he right? Your portrait of him was pretty
unsparing.^6 I actually reread that recent-
ly, and I think what he was talking about
was that he was upset that he wasn’t in
the book’s acknowledgments. I spoke to
him briefl y and — I’m trying not to be
too revealing — he was also upset that I
wrote that he sold used cars to the mili-
tary. He wanted me to know that he sold
new cars. That was just something I’d
misremembered. But I think he felt I was
demeaning him by saying that he sold
used cars, and it was important for me to
know that he sold new ones. You think:
I talked about how you were drinking. I
talked about how you crashed your car.
But it’s that one weird little detail that
upsets someone.^7
Your mom, as you said before, was really
critical of you. But now that you’ve had
time to live with the reality of the book’s
success, what do you think she’d make of
how strongly people have responded to