Best-Selling Author Mary Laura Philpott on Her Memoir, Bomb Shelter: Love, Time and Other Explosives

mary laura philpott author

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EPISODE SUMMARY:

Best known for her books I Miss You When You Blink, Penguins with People Problems, and her latest release, Bomb Shelter, Mary Laura Philpott is an author who uses emotion and personal experience to make readers feel seen and give them a sense of human connection. In today’s episode, we spoke to Mary about her writing style, the story of her son’s health scare, Bomb Shelter, and what she hopes people will take away from her newest book.

First, we asked Mary about the way she writes. Her writing is structured in essay format, and she incorporates it into memoirs. Explaining why, she told us that for her, integrating essay and memoir writing comes easily. Her mind works like a mental filing cabinet; she stores memories away, and they come flowing out one by one when she reflects on a certain emotion. The lined-up memories make essay writing come more naturally and the structure is easily moved into memoir format. When speaking of her memoirs, we also discussed a story she shared about her son’s medical scare. Mary explained that when her son was a teenager, they found him at 4 a.m. having a seizure on the bathroom floor. He was taken to the hospital and diagnosed with epilepsy. After the incident, she started worrying more about what would happen when he graduated high school. As a mother, she wanted to protect her children, and it scared her that a point would come that she would not be able to shield him from everything. The experience really spoke to her feelings of uncertainty at the time, and while it was very personal, she felt it important to include in her memoir.

When writing a book, readers are a vital component to consider. As she was working on her own stories, Mary realized that despite writing about her personal journey, she had to consider an objective perspective. People will often make assumptions of people they don’t know based on what they see or read about them, no matter the situation. Mary shared an example of this in her book when she discussed an experience while touring colleges with her children. She said that the tour guide shared a story with all of them about how a mother and daughter once ended up having a screaming match on the quad because the daughter did not want to attend the university. While most of the other parents gasped at the mention of the fight, Mary realized that they were judging the mother and daughter based on one moment. Because both of them lost their temper one time, they were now being deemed a cautionary tale. Mary told us she believes that people should be less judgmental of people, especially when we only see small moments of their lives.

We also spoke to Mary about her choice to include discussions about the pandemic in Bomb Shelter. She explained that initially, she didn’t want the pandemic to be part of the story. She believed that while relevant now, readers in a few years may not want to read about it. However, her memoir is a true story, so for her, it had to remain authentic and honest. The pandemic is part of her journey, so she couldn’t omit it. Mary also discovered that while writing about the pandemic, the experience played into the book’s overall theme of uncertainty. The title of her book is another detail that took some consideration, but it was inevitably chosen due to an interesting reference to her father. One day, while on the phone with her father, he revealed to her that one of his past jobs was as a top-secret staff member of one of the government’s nuclear bunkers. The reveal was shocking to Mary, especially once she started connecting the dots of her childhood that linked back to his secret occupation.

As midlife women, the struggle of taking care of aging parents while also raising children is a difficult experience many can relate to. For Mary, she described her feelings about it as having children in two separate places. On the one hand, she wanted to be supportive and take care of her parent, but on the other, she wanted to continue to be there for her young kids. The pulling of her heart in both directions made her feel out of control and exhausted. However, Mary eventually found solace in the knowledge that time keeps moving forward, no matter what, and that nothing lasts forever.

Finally, we asked Mary what she hopes readers will take away from Bomb Shelter. She said that for those who feel like they can relate to her, she hopes they feel seen by her story. For those who don’t relate to her, she hopes that reading Bomb Shelter either provides them a better understanding of someone else or that they simply enjoy the book anyways. She also wants every reader to walk away from her book feeling a sense of human connection, something Mary thinks we all need more of right now.

Mary Laura Philpott

Mary Laura Philpott is the author of the brand-new memoir, Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives (April 2022), which has been named an Indie Next pick by booksellers nationwide, an Amazon Editor’s Choice selection, and a best book of the spring or most anticipated book of the year by publications ranging from the Washington Post to TODAY.com, among others. She is also the author of the national bestseller I Miss You When I Blink — which was named one of NPR’s Favorite Books of 2019 and a finalist for the Southern Book Prize. Her writing has been featured by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and other publications. Additionally, Mary Laura (yes, she goes by both names) is a former bookseller and was an Emmy-winning co-host of A Word on Words, the literary interview program on Nashville Public Television. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with her family.