The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – All Shook Up: A Novel by Enid Langbert

Episode Date: February 4, 2026

All Shook Up: A Novel by Enid Langbert https://www.amazon.com/All-Shook-Up-Enid-Langbert/dp/1684632641 Enidlangbert.com This YA debut speaks to the continued interest in the teen culture of the 1950s—Elvis Presley, teenage rebellion—with a young girl embarking on adventure and music, ultimately uncovering family secrets. Being fourteen is especially hard in 1956, when the world is changing around you. Honor student Paula Levy was born into a family of historical victims: her mother’s youth was lost in the Depression and her father’s was destroyed in the Holocaust, an as-yet-unnamed event about which no one speaks. But Paula has heard the new music taking hold of the nation—rock and roll—and it has given her hope. And she has two friends to get her through life’s ups and downs: Holden Caulfield, hero of Catcher in the Rye, who shares her view of the world, and Barbara, a “cool” girl in her high school who unexpectedly shares Paula’s view of Holden. Paula’s mother is not a fan of Barbara, and she prohibits her daughter from associating with her. Paula manages to get around her mother’s rule and see Barbara anyway—but when Paula asks the wrong questions about her father’s past and Barbara is caught with her “boyfriend,” their private world of Holden, rock, and Elvis Presley crumbles. Angry with the adults in their lives, the two girls run away to find Barbara’s real father, a jazz musician. Disappointingly, he does not live in a mansion or socialize with Elvis—but Paula and Barbara may find something even better. About the author Enid Wolfe Langbert was not as adventurous as her protagonist, Paula, in high school, but she made up for it in the sixties by marching, sitting in, and raging against segregation and the war while, in her spare time, raising three children. Eventually, she went to law school. She loved zealously advocating for her clients as an attorney, whether they deserved it or not, until her husband became ill and she closed her practice to care for him. After he passed, she traveled widely and enrolled in an English literature master’s program. She is now writing her thesis, tracing the influence of James Joyce’s legal issues on his writing of Finnegans Wake—a topic about which she is unambiguously passionate. Enid lives in New York City.

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featured author comes to us from Books to Life Marketing.co.com with expert publishing to strategic marketing, they help authors reach their audience and maximize their book's success. Tim is a young lady on the show. She dressed. She took two hours to go through her closet to find the best that she seems to wear on the show

and I'm so proud of her. We're going to demand this from every guest. They must spend at least two to four hours going through their, through their, through their, uh, through their closet and finding the best clothes to wear because these are, these are kind of people we have on, folks. High integrity, you know, they don't dress like, well, you know, I don't want to shame homeless people, but they, they, they come dress for the show, let's put that way. So she's here with us and her new book that came out September 10th, 2024, is called

All Shook Up, a novel by Enid Langbert. We're going to get into it with her. at her journey and details and what's in her book. Enid was not as adventurous as her book's protagonist, Paula, in high school, but she made up for it in the 60s by marching, sitting in and raging against segregation in the war, well in her spare time, raising three children. Eventually, she went to law school. She loved zealously advocating for her clients as an attorney, whether they deserved it or not, until her husband became ill and she closed her practice to care for him. After he passed, she traveled widely and enrolled in English Literature Masters Program. She is now writing her thesis, tracing the influence of James Joyce's legal issues on his writing of Finnegan's Wake, a topic about which she is unambiguously passionate.

And she lives in New York City. Welcome to the show. How are you, Enid? I'm great. I'm great, Chris. Thank you. I told you about the dressing confidentially. I didn't think you were going to bring. Broadcaster to the world. Well, I thought it was wonderful. So if you want... I like people to think I just roll out of bed and look like it. Roll out of bed looking this amazing. Well, you just told them.

So they're going to have to believe it. But no, we can edit that if you want, but if you want... I think it was wonderful and cute. I think it's great. So give us any dot-coms. Where do you want people to find you on the interwebs? I have a website, Enid Langbert.com. It's very hard to remember.

It's just my book. There's no punctuation. And that has, you know, that has a lot of great stuff about me. This is the book, and it's on Amazon, and there's a lot of really amazing reviews there, which I'm very grateful for. And it's been in various other magazines and stuff. But actually, if you look at my website, you'll see a lot of different remarks, comments, and reviews and things. like that. So this has got a big old, one of those old classic

what are they used to call these LP players, song players, jukebox. Jukebox. The old jukebox. Yeah, I'm so old. It's a while I remember the term jukebox. You never hear or see them anymore. Well, yeah, they were so beautiful. Yeah, they really were. In fact, there's one

at the, there's like a greasy spoon that I go to. It has the old diners. In fact, one of the breakfasts breakfast in America. Oh, yeah. Every once in a while, you see like a 50s diner themed restaurant, and they'll have a jukebox. I miss those days.

I remember playing up the jukebox, playing all the songs that everyone else in the bar hated. So give us something. That's funny there. So there's a, that scene out of my book where she plays, she plays rock and roll. And the mother,

and Bill Haley, which is like the first rock and roll song, she saw it. And she plays it on a, on the jukebox. and everybody in the restaurant gets freaked out and angry and her and her mother is humiliated and she's just so happy. That used to be me.

I'm like, I'm going to play all the heavy music and all the all the foo-foo pop music people in the, in the pool hall. We're always like for real, Metallica again. So anyway, so give us a 30,000 over you about this book. Tell us what's up with this as a general. Well, actually, the genesis of it is, you know, one morning I found myself the proud progenitor of a bunch of little grandchildren, and so I started writing books and making stories for them, you know. And I said, well, this is fun.

So I took a children's book writing course, right? And at a certain point, the instructor was describing how she had gotten her book published. And she said that her family came from Kentucky, and her aunt told her that during the Depression, for a year and a half, they had nothing to eat but pumpkins. And that had inspired a book that she, this picture book about pumpkins. And I had like this moment of enlightenment, you know,

and it was like the ceiling open. I said, that's it. From that, you got a book? My life was a thousand times who were interesting. mad, you know? I mean, I lived in New York City. It was the beginning of television, the beginning of rock and roll, Elvis Presley. My father was a hot-course survivor. His whole family was killed. The Cold War. I mean, this all came flooding to me. And it was interesting because the minute before that, if you had asked me, what was your adolescence like? I would have said,

the pits. It was awful. I was miserable. I was depressed. I was unhappy. Nothing happened. And then I wound up spending, you know, all this time thinking and really getting into this part of my life that I had always thought was the worst, you know. It's not like it was not worst.

I mean, there was that in it, too. It's not Greece. I always hated Greece because it made it seem like the period was all like. The movie? It wasn't, yeah. Okay. But, you know, it was a difficult time. So that's what the book is about.

And it's about Paula, who's 14 in 1956. And if you do the math, that is how old I was. And she lives in Queens, which I did. But as I say, other than that, you know, she actually, winds up with something I always wanted. It certainly never had, which was a cool friend. She actually gets friendly with one of the cool girls. The word nerd didn't exist.

If the word nerd existed in the 50s, that's what I was, right? I still am probably. But I was an honor student, you know, and I would look at the cool girls, you know, with their makeup and jewelry and, you know. And so she actually does want to. up with a cool friend because they connect over Catcher in the Rye. Because Catcher in the Rye is like her first friend.

You know, Paula's first friend is Holden Caulfield. He's the first person that she finds, even that feels as she does, so restless, so unhappy, so looking for something and not knowing what it is. You know? and because that's what really I think that period was like in the 50s. It's this very quiet period where people are trying to pretend the grownups, you know, are trying to pretend that the depression and the war and all these terrible things are over.

And now they just had this wonderfully peaceful life with their little split-level houses and canned food. And she's so restless. And I mean, looking for something, you know, these are the things that sort of in the 60s, these come out. This is what she's looking for she finds in the 60s. But this is before that when there's no definition, there's nothing, you know, it's just this feeling of restlessness. And so first she finds it in Catch on the Rye and then in the Rock and Roll, which. is like so amazing, right? It's the beginning of everything. And then she meets her cool friend and has adventures that I couldn't have dreamed of actually having him for real.

No, I've noticed that there might be some Elvis in this thing. We've got a picture of you in the video right now. If you're watching on YouTube folks, of Elvis and a small little guitar. Do you collect Elvis stuff? What's the... Well, I think that's about it. But no, Elvis was, you know, like, like they discover Elvis and he's just, he's the voice of the future. I mean, he's a voice of hope. He's like everything. They're just crazy, wild in love with him, you know?

Was that what is like for you when you first heard Elvis? Absolutely. No, no. Those things that I described, like the first minute that I heard rock and roll or the first moment that I heard, Elvis or the first cigarette that made me so sick, you know. I remember trying cigarettes when I was in junior high. Man, I was, coughed so hard. I was like, screw this. But no, Elvis was huge, man.

I grew up in the 70s. I remember driving in the big giant Impala, you know, those boat cars had no seatbelts, but they had, you know, five miles of bench seats in them. you could basically sleep inside the bench seats. They were that long as a tall person. I mean, you would, you know, but your girlfriend could always saddle up to you. Otherwise, you'd be like, hey, down there, you'd have to have an aircom system talking to open at the other end of the car.

But you can tell what prom day and I went on in what car. But, yeah, it was those were the days. And I remember hearing over the radio that Elvis had passed. Yeah, I remember that. That, of course, is 20 years later. but yeah yeah and uh but yeah he was he was so popular i mean well he was the first i mean when you um you know i was uh john leno one of the beetles said that you know that that before nobody did anything and elvis did all of it he was the first one that did all of it i mean people

didn't like his hair comb his sideburns his lavender shirts his wiggling his i mean And everything, you know, gyrae, Elvis the pelvis, gyrating. Gyrating, yeah, this is going to use the word gyrating. Yeah, I mean, he started all of it, you know, and we were just like, oh, it was, it was so wonderful, you know. It was like such a breath of fresh air. You know, a lot of, let me ask you this, you know, a lot of things they say about that time was in the 50s and stuff. It was that time of what they kind of harken as the IBM man. So at IBM, you always had to wear a black and white suit to IBM to work.

And, you know, black hat, those hats all the men used to wear back then. And everyone had dressed the same. There was no color, really. There was no celebration of color. Well, that's absolutely. You know, they talked about conformity that would, you know. I mean, and they did. I remember my father going to work in the morning, all the men going to work in their raincoats and their hats and their ties.

And it was. That's why somebody in a lavender shirt was shocking. You know, it's very hard. I mean, one of the reasons that I wrote the book was, you know, so my grandchildren could see what life was like then because it's hard. All of these things are so hard to imagine. I mean, imagine people getting upset because a boy has longish hair. Oh, yeah. I got in trouble for that one.

Yeah, upset, except he's wearing a lavender shirt, you know. I mean, and there's no, there was no method. I think one of the things that's hard to imagine is there wasn't any way of finding out information except the written word. You know, there was television, you know, had these little tiny screens, and they had like eight stations that went off and played the Star Spangled Banner. And so, I mean, there was a, you know, when you think about Google and you think about, you know, having this little thing in your pocket that can access all the knowledge of the universe, it's hard to imagine that we had no access to things that weren't all around us.

And our world was so limited, you know, like, I mean, teenagers all over the world now listen to the same music, have the same clothes. But when I was in school, you know, when somebody transferred in from Brooklyn, they were strange, you know. I mean, you know, they didn't dress the same. They hadn't, I mean, everything was very, very so much smaller. The world was so much smaller. Yeah. Well, there was less people in it too and less craziness and yada, yada, yada and stuff. Well, there's plenty of craziness. I mean, I didn't learn about it. I mean, my father's whole family had been killed, and that's one of the themes of the book. I mean, I found out hundreds of years later that I'm what they call the second generation.

But I didn't know that. You know, like, that's another thing I think that's so hard to imagine because, Because the Holocaust is everywhere, movies, books, fuck, right? The word Holocaust hadn't even been applied yet. No, it hadn't even been framed yet. And people like my father, who came over in 1936 and brought his sister over and then tried and tried to bring his parents over unsuccessfully. So everyone else in his family was killed. And they didn't even know exactly where or how. they just knew that that's what happened.

Wow. And my father never talked about it. So it was a period that people called now, in retrospect, this conspiracy of silence. Yeah. You know, and the most important thing, really, in your life is the thing that nobody talks about. Yeah. A lot of Holocaust survivors were like that. We've had people on who have done written books and documented, you know, the Jewish settlement of Israel and stuff after the war.

and how it seems like a lot of Jewish people, you know, the horrors were so extensive. They just wanted to get back to normalize, and they wanted to forget about, you know, what they'd been through, and not really forget so much, but they just wanted to get back to norm. Well, there was no vocabulary for it,

and there was no room for it. There was no sympathy. There was no understanding of it. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, people hadn't talked about it. It was really, as I say, we didn't even frame the word Holocaust until the 60s, you know. So there was really no place to discuss it, you know. That was one of the things that was so interesting later on to discover that my father was not unique, you know, and my childhood was not unique.

And I wasn't so unique in that way, that there was a whole generation of us who had experienced this. the same way. And that's another factor in the book. Yeah. And there's actually a bit of trauma to that that's passed down to the first generation of survivors. The

I think we've had people on that have talked about Jewish trauma. I think we had a coach on who focuses on helping people understand it and yeah, it's unfortunate the horrors this place and hopefully we never do that again. Of course, the

Uyghurs right now in China are kind of experiencing. Well, it never stopped. I mean, you know, that was a specific thing, but I mean, that sort of thing has never stopped. It's always going on somewhere. Yeah. So now, is Elvis

incorporated a lot in this book? Is that a feature? Well, her feelings about Elvis. Oh, okay. I mean, she talks a lot about it. And, and, you know, when he's on the Milton Burl show, and then watching that, and

and the role of rock and roll and Elvis, I guess, Holden-Clofield, Elvis Presley, and Bill Haley, you know, these are, these are her mentors, these are her salvation, you know. And then, as I say, she actually makes friends with this cruel girl and who, who secretly re is actually in. intelligent, you know, it was sort of embarrassing to be bright. I remember I really hated being smart, you know. You need it being smart.

I would much rather have been sexy, you know. But anyway, so this girl, you know, hides it, but she has catcher in the rye in her pocket, and that's how they connect. Wow. And so then they blend, even though their living situation is different, but, and, you know, they're sort of from different backgrounds and different class situation. But they have, they share this, this restlessness and this longing and, you know, looking for something. And that's what they share and connect with. So what made you want to write the story?

Was there a time where you just had an epiphany? Well, I had the epiphany. I realized I wanted to tell my grandchildren what it had been like for me when I was their age and how different my life had been when I was their age. They, of course, are now way past that age. but but you know like you know the contrast between you know children in the 21st century with iPhones and tell well television of course I mean I didn't see a television set till I was eight years old you know really it was this little thing you know yeah one one woman one one girl's family got it we all went over to see it you know

this little this was quite a thing it was you know but but it was underwhelming really you know I mean you think about television you know it was this little thing it was fuzzy you know

it was funny you know so it was just kind of an oddity you know yeah there was no way of there was nothing to indicate that it would become television you know oh wow it was you know and and then

you know then after a while like then Elvis was on Milton Burr You know, then Milton Berlin and at Sullivan and some of these shows started. So you really could see on these shows, things that you would want to see, which is unusual when you were a kid, right? Oh, yeah. I mean, before that you just had radio, right? Well, it was radio and, well, I listen to radio all the time.

And Alan Freed, that was it, Alan Freed and Murray the K, the DJ started to play. Rock and roll. And that was the first time I heard Bill Haley rock around the clock and shake, rattle, and roll. That was the first one I ever heard. And I talk about that, you know, like, it's just like, oh, my God, you know, it's like amazing. It's not crooners. It's not, you know. So in the book, you write about several different things. One thing that you kind of talk about, and this is being fed to me by the PR. questionnaire that they gave us. You talk about the word Holocaust. When was the word Holocaust applied to the German genocide? I'm not sure what that's about,

but sure you know. Well, my book takes place in 1956, and I think it was like 61 or two or something that there was a movie or TV show. I'm forgetting what it was exactly, but it

was not until several years later. It didn't exist. the period of time that I'm talking about, there was no word for what had happened. And there was no real sense. I remember, I kind of always knew that my grandparents had died in Germany. But I didn't know did it only happen to them?

I mean, you know, it wasn't clear, you know, it wasn't talked about. And there was such a, all of the grown-up. in school and at home, there was such an intent to like focus on how wonderful everything was now, how safe everything was now. And of course, safety means similarity, conformity. Yeah.

You know, and she hated that. I hated it. Huh. Always. I always hated it. I didn't want it. I mean, I didn't run out in the street to get hit by a car. but but I couldn't stand that sense of safety and and and and conformity.

And that's, so that's what the book is about, you know, a search, you know, a search for something else. Well, you certainly found it in the 60s. You guys found color and acid and drugs and rock and roll. Indeed, I did. but that that kind of explains your explanation of the conformity in the times of it I mean I guess that was kind of a worldwide response for everybody in conformity because everyone just wanted to get back to normal you know that's my parents I mean in retrospect obviously you know they're long gone and and I didn't I didn't feel this at the

time but you know they were really victims of history my mother they You know, my mother grew up in New York and my father grew up in Germany, but they were similar in that they had started out with a lot of promise, very comfortable situations, a lot of promise. And both of them had that taken away from them. My mother lost it by the Depression, you know, where her father lost his factory and the poor, and she had to work selling China in Macy's to support the family.

My father, of course, his whole world was taken away. And he came to New York without anything, you know, with people helping him. Wow. So they were victims of history. So suddenly, you know, now we have the 50s and they have jobs and they have, you know, canned food. And, you know, they just have... Microwave. You know, they have a nice place to live and they have clothes.

And, you know, so they're... They really cherish it in a way that you can't if you haven't lived through it. As much as my mother always said, you know, when I was your age, it was the Depression. But, which, you know. That was the other thing. Yeah, they lived through the Depression. So that's another reason they may have had conformity just for safety and trying to make everything work. They value.

You know, you could go to the grocery store and there was plenty of food there. all during the war, right? You had to have slips and, you know, there was nothing in the store. You know, they had lived through very difficult times and now they were having wonderful time, which was fine except it didn't. And a lot of people, I think, were very happy. I wasn't for whatever reason. And there were those of us who were just longing for something else, which didn't happen

until the 60s and then we just dropped out and had a ball. But it didn't happen then. So that's what that story is about. It's about the striving. It's about the seeking, you know. Yeah, the seeking of all

good stuff there. Well, it sounds like a wonderful, lovely book and wonderful stuff that people can enjoy with it. What's the future bring for you? Is there maybe a continuum of this series? Maybe turn into a series than the characters? Well, I know I have thought a lot about, I mean, I did have a lot more adventures, obviously, you know, like, you know, after this sort of this, you know, like I had children and I went to live in a community and, you know, and then, you know, and then I went to law school.

But so I've had a lot. So I have thought about it. Right now, I, you know, as I said, I went, I went. I realized at a certain point that I could do whatever I wanted, you know, and what I wanted to do was study English. I mean, I really am a nerd, you know, and as I have been reminded. So I'm working on my thesis, so that's what I'm writing. But I could write another book about Paula.

I know her very well, and I like her. She's very funny. I guess that's something we should really mention, because the book is very funny. You know, people say that, you know, that she's very funny because I'm funny. It's interesting. We write what we know. So when we look at stuff, we go, hey, this is, you know, we write from our own frame and everything else. So, yeah, a feature series might be good.

People love hearing about the books and all that sort of good stuff. They love the characters as they progress through books and series. So what do you think Paula, your character in the book, would think of rap these days? Oh, I would shoot hate it. Evidently they called it bubblegum rock back then? In retrospect, they did. Oh, obviously. And once the Beatles came out, we sort of, which was, this is 1956.

So like in, in 1961 or two or something, no, it was like. like 63 when the Beatles came to America. But when, no, it was before that. All right. I went up in like 60, we started folk rock and Bob Dylan. We kind of turned our back on rock and roll. Simon Garfunkel. And, you know, it was Dylan and Phil Oaks and Simon and Garfunkel.

and so it was a different kind of music and it was a different kind of goal you know you weren't just talking about you know losing your girlfriend you're talking about you know war and equality and stuff so we sort of at that point

turned our back on it and then of course when the Beatles came you sort of went back to rock and roll but it was a different kind of rock and roll yeah it was definitely an interesting kind and they it's just so amazing the talent skill and vision that they had. I'd say that, you know, music, it's like I've had this, this background music throughout my life, right?

You know, can always tell what my life is like by thinking about the music that I was listening to, but I don't listen to rap. Ah, yeah, I'm not a big fan of it either. I like the soul of music, but, you know, I get people that, you know, everyone's got their flavors. The last, the last person I liked really was Bruce Springsteen. Yeah, he's still great, right? He's still great.

He's still great. He's still running around. He's like 75. Nobody gives concerts like he does. I mean, it's unbelievable. He goes on and he's fabulous. How old is Bruce now? Bruce, I just saw him on stage in Minnesota,

and he is 76, and he's still out there playing on stage. Yeah, he has such energy. And, of course, when you know all his music like I do, Oh, yeah. What a great, what a great stuff. Yeah, he was just in Minneapolis supporting them there. So what do you hope people come away with when they read your book? I hope that they just feel, one woman said I felt like I had my best friend on every page.

And I thought that was lovely. I mean, I would like them to, you know, on a larger sense, obviously you could see what, what the turning point of the 20th century was, you know, and moving from the horrors of the first half of the 20th century to what later happens. And this is like the paradigm, the pivotal point, you know. But I think the book is fun. I think the book really gives you a little bit of an insight of what life is like before the Internet, before the phones, you know,

when telephones set on the table and phonographs sat on the table and had big holes, played records with big holes in them. Oh, yeah. You know, and you could only see movies when they were playing at the local theater where there were women in white dresses telling you to be quiet.

And, you know, I mean, it was a different world. It was a different world. and it sort of gives you an insight into this world and what's happened in this world. Yeah. Well, it's led us here, but yeah, it was, I come to think of it between the Depression, the wars, two world wars, and everything else, you know, people are just really happy to get back to normal. And it was kind of an interesting life, this burgeoning of color and light that came out of it.

You know, I remember, I mean, Elvis was arrested a few times, I think, Wasn't he for his gyrating? Well, they started to show, on television, they started to just show him from like here up, you know? Is that what they did really? Wow. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

I mean, I think that, you know, when he was first on, they would show him singing, but then they would just show him from here up, yeah. He was gyrating those hips. Yeah. So maximum porn. And now they got Only fans. So there's that. Well, it's been fun to have you on and catch up on the show.

Give us your dot com. as we go out to Enid so people can find you on the interwebs. Yeah, well, it's Enid Langford, E-N-I-D-L-A-N-G-B-E-R-T-R-T-com. Thank you very much, Enid, for being on the show. It's been wonderful to have you and just a delay. Thank you. Thank you. And thanks darnis for tuning in.

Go to Goodrease.com, Fortress, Chris Foss and all those crazy places to the internet. Referring, show your family, friends, relatives. Order per book, wherever fine books are sold. It is called All Shook Up, a novel. Out September 10th, 2024 by Enid Lingbert. Thanks for joining in. Be good to each other. Stay safe.

We'll see you guys next time. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning. Consuming too much of the Chris Walshow podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts. Consult a doctor for any resulting brain bleed. All right there, Enid, we're