The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show – The Apology Project: A Novel by Jeanette Escudero

Episode Date: August 10, 2021

The Apology Project: A Novel by Jeanette Escudero Dear (almost) everyone: Can we be friends again? Life is about to get complicated for Amelia Montgomery, a prominent litigator in Chicago. She’s been fired for not compromising her principles in a high-profile case and then punching her partner in the nose for the misogynistic comment he made in retort (not her finest moment). Leaving a career that gave her purpose, Amelia can only ask, What next? Let it be better than her epic failure of a fortieth birthday party: an open bar full of no-shows except for John Ellis, a total stranger and the new associate at her ex-firm. As it turns out, though, he’s very good company―and a wake-up call. With the help of John and a lot of champagne, Amelia considers the people she’s wronged, from old besties to former boyfriends to coworkers. Amelia resolves to make amends―to those who really deserve it. One apology at a time, Amelia’s looking at the choices she’s made in the past, the new ones she’s making with John, and those she’s making for herself. What next? Maybe a second chance she never expected.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain now here's your host chris voss hi this is voss here from the chris voss show.com the chris voss show.com hey we're coming here with another great podcast we certainly appreciate you guys tuning in thanks for being here be. Be sure to refer to the show to your friends, neighbors, relatives. Go to youtube.com, ForgeSXCrossFoss.

Hit that bell notification button. Go to all of our things on Goodreads, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, all those different places you can go to and see all the wonderful things that we're up to over there. Go to goodreads.com, ForgeSXCrossFoss. See everything we're reading and reviewing. So today we're going to be interviewing a wonderful author. She is the author of the book that just came out August 1st, 2021, The Apology Project, a novel. Her name is Jeanette Escudero, and she's on the show with us today.

She is the child of Cuban immigrants as she was born and raised in Miami. She worked as an attorney before turning to writing fiction. Being published fulfilled a dream and gave her an outlet for her imaginative romantic side. Writing under the pseudonym Sydney Halston, she is a USA Today bestselling author of multiple romance series, and she writes about flawed and relatable women. Welcome to the show, Jeanette. How are you? I'm good. Thank you for having me. Hi, everyone. Hi, welcome. This is interesting because when I Googled you, they're like,

hey, we want to put her on your show. I saw like all these romance novels and I'm like, okay, let's see what this is about. And I love romance novels, but how many times can we have sex on the beach? I'm just kidding. I'm doing jokes. Many times. Jeanette, give us your plugs so people can find you on the interwebs. Sure. This is the first book under my real actual name, which is Jeanette Escudero. And you can find me on Facebook under author Jeanette Escudero, Twitter author Jeanette Escudero or at author Jeanette Escudero. Same thing with Instagram at author Jeanette Escudero, or at author Jeanette Escudero. Same thing with Instagram, at author Jeanette Escudero. So pretty simple. Pretty simple. So what motivated you to write this book and of course, divert from your normal romance? I did very well writing romance for

about six or seven years and really cranked out a bunch of books which i loved i still love them to this day but didn't feel very romantic to write during during corona and covid and the lockdown just didn't get that same there was no sex in the beach i did have some sex in the beach drinks but but that's about it. So I think that's really what made me switch over. This book just didn't feel very romantic and very sexy. It had a completely different tone. It's a funnier book actually, but it was really about the character and how she went through some changes and some work related things that we can get into, but it wasn't about the guy. It wasn't about the romance.

It was really about her. And once that kind of happened, I said, I need to differentiate between Sidney Hostin, the romance risque author and the literary fiction writer. And that's how it came about. Blame it on COVID. Blame it on COVID.

You could have had the two of them riding on the beach there getting sand in all their parts with the COVID masks on. Not the same. Just that's not. I can see the cover for that. I'm sure we will see it at some point, right? Yeah. He's asking her, have you been vaccinated? That sort of thing.

Let me see your vaccination records. Love in the COVID land. It's going to be a book. I don't know. Your vaccination records. Love in the COVID land. It's going to be a book. I guarantee somebody's writing that right now. Give us an overview of the book. What details? Give us some of the minutia. Amelia Montgomery has been an attorney for, right?

Went to high school, went to college, went to law school, attorney like I did. Just one thing after the other, except that she just kept on being in the grind of things and just working, got up the ranks in this law firm, only woman in the law firm, up high as one of the partners. And now she's in kind of a crossroads. She's about to turn 40. She's been handed this major case where the defendant is really a sexist jerk and probably did the things that she's supposed to be defending him against. Civil cases, very much me too, like Harvey Weinstein kind of situation where he's this big, bad, kind of not the best guy, but she's always handled these cases, but she feels icky basically handling this one.

She just doesn't want to defend them. The partners say a few things to her where it comes across as she's just the token woman here in this firm. And she has to basically go forward and do these and defend this guy. And she's had it up to here. They get into an altercation. Her fist might have landed on one of the partners' face. So she finds herself without a job after so many years. And she just has lost herself in the mix. And it's her journey into finding who

she is. She's lost friends because she's been working for so many years. She's lost a lot of her identity. And it's just about her finding who she really is now without a job. And it's that transition, which I myself felt when I had my kids and even with COVID, just being at home so much, things change. I think it changed everyone this COVID time. And that's basically in a nutshell, and it's a tough journey. And it's how as a woman, you just find yourself apologizing for everything when sometimes there's just nothing to apologize for sometimes you just felt the friendship like just fizzled out and it's about that and just in general as a working woman it's tough especially if you pass that childbearing age and where are you now what do you do

so that's in a nutshell what it's but but funny because it is funny so it's kind of a funnier novel would that be yeah it's it's yeah it has humor i tend to make humor a big focal point in all my books even the romance ones even though even if it's tough subjects i like to use humor i just it's just the way i am yeah. And it's been getting really good reviews, people finding it relatable and funny, and I'm very proud of it. Awesome. Now we talked before the show, you, you're a child of Cuban immigrants and how did that play out in the book? She discovers through a 23andMe. So very interesting. She discovers through a 23andMe test because her father is adopted. So she just kind of assumed she was born and raised in Chicago. She just assumed she's American. She never thought anything else of it. She discovers

that she has this whole lineage that she didn't even know. And this Cuban descent, her father's Cuban, and she has family in Cuba that she didn't know. So her journey into finding herself takes her on into Cuba where she has these long lost cousins. And she sees that we're all having the same struggles, whether we're here, we're there, it's all at the end of the day, the same struggles. And she finds that really relatable. But funny enough, in Miami, we live in a little bit of a bubble and we have these accents. And I don't know that I have an accent, but as soon as you hear me talk, you're like, where are you from? I've never left. I've never left Florida.

I've just, this is where I'm from. My kids don't speak any Spanish. We look a certain way. So people just, we're in a bubble, right? So Amelia is a blonde, blue eyed lady. She would never have thought she's Hispanic, but she is. Half of her is Cuban. And I think that happens a lot in Miami. We get

lost in this. Everyone has this accent. So you automatically assume it's just like a Miami accent. But as soon as we leave, everybody hears it. And I get asked all the time, where are you from? I'm like, I'm from right here. Florida is its own world. It is its own thing. And Miami is another monster, right? Another own world. What are some other aspects of the book that we need to touch on? Do you think it's possible, some of the narrative you use in the book, do you think it's possible for women to find work-life balance? So I think that is really what the book is about.

Is there like this women have it all? Can I have it all? And I think it's that journey of when you're, maybe, I don't know if men go through this, but I can tell you that a lot of women do go through this. I think when we're in our twenties, at least for me, I was like out to get the world. I wanted to find, I wanted to conquer everything. I wanted to have it all. But at that point, what is all? Is it money? Is it wealth? Is it having a family? And I think at your 30s, once you've found your profession, you're more like where you want to be and you're pushing. And then all of a sudden,

those years where you're supposed to get married and you're supposed to have kids, where did they go? And I've been fighting this fight all this time. And then now you're 40. What did you miss out on? What really is all? And I think that, I don't know if it was my age when I turned 40, or if it was just the fact that we're all stuck at home together, but I felt like I do have it all, but I don't have the money. I might not have the car. I might not have the partnership in a law firm, but I felt, I feel like this is what is, it made you redefine what is all. And I think that's what the book really touches on. Maybe at our twenties and thirties, we want all these friends, or we think we have all these friends,

but really it's all about quality and not quantity. And I think that's just something we don't see until we're a little bit older and we have experiences. And that's where the Apology Project comes in. I used to have all these friends. Where'd they go? Were they really your friends? Just people in passing. Just because you have 5,000 followers doesn't mean you have 5,000 friends, right? You might only have five friends, people you can truly count on.

And that's what she learns throughout her journey. Is that what the Ap apology project refers to then? Yeah. It's her 40th birthday. Now she's out of a job. Her sister throws her this big party. Nobody shows up. Oh.

Yeah. Yeah. Big party. Really hit to the ego there. She had been at the top of her game and now she has nobody at her party. And then she starts to re maybe she had a little bit too many drinks that night. And she starts reevaluating her life. And she's man, maybe I do need to apologize to a bunch of people. So she writes this list on a napkin, which is the cover of the book. And she's like,

all right, I'm gonna put where did these people go in my life? Maybe I did wrong them. And then she starts on her journey to apologize. And the apology doesn't always go as planned. Some people did not accept her apology. Some people owed her an apology. And some people, she just, it just fizzled out. And that's how it came about. And then at the end that out of this big list, there's only a handful of people really that, that are left that are of substance that she wants to really have them in her life.

So maybe her 41st birthday isn't going to have 100 people. Maybe it's only going to have 20. But it's the 20 people she wants to be with, not the 100 that she felt obligated to rekindle that friendship. Do you think that's a good lesson for women in their relationships? Or how do you feel that plays out as some sort of lesson for women in analyzing their life, the arc of their life? I think we, as women, question ourselves so often as soon as we leave a room. Did I say this correctly? Did I not? Oh my God, maybe I should

have said it this way. I think we question ourselves. I learned throughout this process on talking to my husband. There's things that I questioned that he would, it would never occur to him or even an apology. He's like, why are you even thinking this twice? You didn't do anything wrong, but we overanalyze thing. And I think it's a woman thing. I hate to generalize, but I think it is a woman thing where we overanalyze just a lot of things that maybe we shouldn't. And I think that it is a good lesson that it's, we don't need a hundred people that don't care about us in our lives. We need quality people in our lives. It takes two. I think that's something I learned. I was always so hung up with, oh my God, I didn't, I was so busy. I didn't go to this person's kid's first birthday party,

or I didn't make it to this wedding or I did it. But then I thought, or I didn't I was so busy I didn't go to this person's kid's first birthday party or I didn't make it to this wedding or I did it but then I thought or I didn't call it's been two months since I called my really good friend and then I started thinking well actually to be honest my husband said but she didn't call you either or she didn't make it to your I'm like yeah man what is that because we put so much stress on ourselves. She didn't show up to your whatever either. And I'm like, wow, yeah. And why am I holding this burden on myself?

So I think that is something that we women do often. We put all this expectation, which it's just something we're doing to ourselves. No one else is placing that expectation on us, I don't think. It seems to work for women. If it wasn't for you guys, we wouldn't have a propagation of the species. I wouldn't even be here. That is true. Whatever you guys got going on.

It seems to be some sort of genetic DNA stuff that goes, and who am I to question whatever, thanks to my mom. But yeah, she wasn't worried about stuff. But is this kind of speaking out on some of the challenges that you see women continue to face in male-dominated workplaces? So I still practice law in the sense that I still, right now I'm in my office actually. So I do employment law. I've always done employment law. I'm suing someone right now. I'm suing someone right now.

Actually, I represent employers in a consulting capacity. So interestingly enough, which is all mixed in with the book, I do employment law. I represent employers. And if people think that the harassment and discrimination and sexual harassment is a thing of the past, I'm telling you right now, I would not have a job. So I see it every single day. I have cases every day coming through my emails and through my complaint process that my boss is harassing me. My coworker is touching me. Yeah, it's every single day. I do see more men complain lately. I think it's as women move up in the job force, but I still see it every single day. And it's women in high positions that

you think, how are they allowing this to happen? Why don't they just stand up for themselves? But it's really hard when your boss is harassing you, you need that job for your livelihood. Whether you're a partner at a law firm or the head of dermatology at a major hospital, if your boss is harassing you, it's not as easy as one would think to just say something because you feel that your livelihood is at stake. So I see these things every single day. And it's crazy because I think people think it's over. It's not happening. You see the TV, Me Too came in and it wiped out all the sexual harassment. It really didn't. It didn't. It's still going on. As a CEO, I had to write up people and fire people

for sexual harassment that were on our teams. And so I've seen what it looks like from all those different sides. And people just still don't get it. There's still a mix of people that are still living in the old world and the new world. I was just watching Governor Cuomo give his apology today and reading some of the deets on it and stuff, thinking it through. But yeah, it's still extraordinary. It's going to be with us for a while. A lot of people just aren't getting the message, no matter how many times I guess you put them through. Yeah.

And, you know, Chris, you want to hear something interesting. interesting during the pandemic, I had such an increase of cases of discrimination against women because a lot of employers didn't want to hire women. We, it brought us back. They would just blatantly call, do we still have to hire women? Do we have to hire people with families? And the reason is because every time that there was, I know that's the same face I made. I'm like, didn't you hear my training last week? But think about it when I know, right? So this is the reason. And there's actually a reasoning behind it. And it always floors me because of the homeschooling women are, we're taking in a lot of that task or that role. I, myself, my husband's a great guy and he's at home, but I did a lot of the homeschooling. And, um And so employers were, their mindset was,

if I hire a man, I'm not going to have to deal with this because the wife is at home doing the homeschooling, not the man. So why don't I just hire men or people without children? So I will guarantee you that we will have such an increase of lawsuits once this starts coming to light, because our, my caseload doubled because of it. It's gotta be really hard to hire people that don't have kids, especially ones that are older. I'm a unicorn in that way myself. I just never could afford a wife and kids. I'm waiting to, I got to make a few more million dollars. Well, you'd get all the jobs. Sadly, I work for myself, so they're not going to be able to hire me. Most single people I know that work for themselves,

but I don't know. But yeah, that's pretty discriminatory. I have friends that are the husbands and they're doing the homeschooling. Their wives aren't actually going to work for big corporations. And so there's that. But yeah, it's sad that there's an unfortunate thing. Is the character in here, is she a lawyer? Is that, is part of your lawyer job played into the writing of the book? Yeah, I think that the cases that I allude to in the book are things

that I've seen and just cases that are common in my practice. And it's all based on the actual discrimination part is all based on things that I either experienced personally or have seen. Yeah. Listen, when I first started practicing law, I'll never forget. I was in the courtroom. I was, yeah, I was like 25 years old, excited. It was a small case. I had my client there and it was a male. The opposing counsel was a man, older gentleman, Cuban actually. The judge was an older man, American Caucasian guy. And the opposing counsel said something along the lines of, mama, relax. Let me handle it. I wanted, steam came out of my ears. It was so condescending. And it's a combination of being a woman, being young.

So I can relate to Amelia's story in the book. And I think a lot of women would, whether you're an attorney, a housewife or a stay at home mom or a doctor, I think that we can relate to those little condescending remarks. Yeah, it's something that needs to change. I got the message in the 90s. I think it was from, what was that one movie with Michael Douglas and What's Her Face? But no, I got the message back then, not just from that movie, but from the kind of the rise of, sexual harassment stuff and i was like a ceo and i'm like okay and i'd always just understood that you don't make friends with people especially as a boss as a ceo because you blind that thing and once people think you're a friend like i would have people come in and be like you're the man

we're great friends i'm like whoa whoa whoa i'm the boss yeah we're not friends because as soon as they said friends or that i was the man they started kissing my ass a little too hard right i was like i need to go check their work because they're hiding something and they're kissing my ass because they're not doing their work you can be friendly but you don't need to be yeah exactly yeah friendly but like one time one of my sales managers started hanging out with the people out late at night after a bar that he overseen and right away our production dived i found out about it and went what the hell are you doing but then there's that other thing i think there's let me say it in a nice way don't poop where you eat so i say that in my trainings but i think the actual thing yeah i do i say you can find love anywhere you don don't have to go where you eat. It's just a big, huge disaster.

It never turns out well. I very rarely have seen people fall in love and stay married for a really long time when that person's your support. And I'm sure it happens. It happens in my romance novels. Yeah. That's fiction. See, you're encouraging people, Jeanette. What are you doing?

That's fiction. Are you trying to create more work for yourself? Is that what you're trying to do? You've got to be really careful. It just never works out the way. It just never does. Once you cross that line, you've just got to, I just learned a long time ago as a CEO, you've got to really keep that, your boss, employee, separation of everything.

You've just got to keep that line. But yeah, evidently i got the message and governor you know and it's hard to forget when your boss goes to happy hour and drinks too much and starts stripping on top of the table it's hard to forget the next day you see your boss and you gotta yeah it's hard to to unsee things sometimes note to self cancel that work male stripper where i was going to do where I was going to dance with the guys from Thunder Down Under in a thong. Yeah, cancel that trip. That's some good stories. I'll bet. I'll bet. And you would think attorneys would know better. I don't

know. There you go. So, Janay, anything you want to touch on or tease on the book before we go? No, I think it's a really fun summer, summer read. It has some deep and important topics in there, but it's a fun book. And I think she got her happily ever after ish. I say ish. It's not perfect. Happily ever after because world is not perfect, but it never is. But I think it's a, it's a, it's a fun book with important information in there,

important topics that I think that especially women can relate to. I think men can read it because it's a fun book and I hope everyone picks it up. There you go. There you go. Everyone, check out the book. Give us your plugs before we go out so people can find you in the interwebs. Yes. If you're on Twitter, it's at author Jeanette. Actually, on Twitter, it's author Escudero. On Facebook and Instagram, it's at author Jeanette Escudero. And I'm not good at LinkedIn, so I don't have a LinkedIn, but I should get one, right? You should. Instagram is good too. Yeah. And Instagram is at author Jeanette Escudero. And Goodreads, you can find me there too. I have a Goodreads Jeanetta Scudero.

Then my romance novels are Sidney Halston. They're all linked together. Very different books, but all my books are funny. So if you like a fun read, whether it's romantic or not romantic, just some fiction, any of my books will catch your eye. How many romance novels do you have? And do you see yourself going back there, Shania, or are you going to continue on this road? I have about 15 romance novels that I've published. That's a lot of sex on the beach. Yeah. Very creative person. I think I'm going to stick with romance. I'm sorry,

literary fiction for a while. I've enjoyed it. I've enjoyed it. They're harder because it's not, it's easier to put everything into a nice little ribbon at the end and say everything worked out great. It's hard when you have to, it's more reality-based, but I enjoy it. I enjoy it. So I think the next couple of books are going to be just regular old fiction, not romance. I think you know what you should do? I don't mean to tell you what to do, but I have an idea for you because we talked about this pre-show. I think you should go to Cuba and write maybe a romance or pseudo romance or wherever you want to do in Cuba, set in Cuba. Set in Cuba?

That place is so beautiful. The next book, Happiest, which is also from the same publisher, is more based on her heritage. And it's a little funner in the sense there's a little more fun in the sense that we see more of that cuban side of the it's not the same it's different characters but it has more of that in it i should go to cuba for yeah i want to go to and photograph it and meet the people this i can't remember what it was i think it might have been anthony bourdain but i saw this thing yeah this is before they all got phones and got on the internet when they were still really pure it's kind of sad that they're getting on the internet, but it's good for them. But they talked about how people come out on the streets and they talk to each other and they commiserate.

It's a society still. We're all just like in our homes with our phones going. Oh, no. They're still and they go out and they play dominoes every night and they dance in the streets. It's a different, they have, when they feel oppressed or whatever is happening, you still see their spirit is very outgoing and fun and very, and there's food involved and dancing. And I agree. And I know what episode of the Anthony Bourdain thing that you're talking about. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I think it's where he talks to the author. There's an author who works out. And he goes eat Tarapaladar, which is a house. It's just basically a house that turns into a restaurant, but that's where you get your home-cooked meals probably better than any restaurant.

I'm going to go to Cuba. I'm going to find me a nice wife who can cook and dance. Mostly cook. I'm at that age where it's like... Do you need the food. You need the food. Cook. Yeah, it's whatever. I don't care anymore. I mean, it's either that or else I got to start dating girls. I'm starving

now. I'm going to email you pictures of the Cuban restaurant we were talking about before the show. Thank you for coming on the show, Jeanette. We really appreciate it and sharing all the wonderful stuff and making me hungry for Cuban food. I'm going to go see if there's any in Utah, which there's probably no hope. There's not.

I don't think so. Everything's white here. It's so annoying and bland. When I first moved here from California, I asked for some Mexican food and we had it. And I said, bring me some hot sauce. And they brought us ketchup. And I was like, no. They don't get it.

Yeah, this world appears awful. Actually, it's gotten better over the last 40 years. Anyway, guys, order it up. August 1st, it just came out, 2021, The Apology Project, a novel. Jeanette, thanks for being on the show. Thanks, to be honest, for tuning in. Be sure to go subscribe to all the different things we do on Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, all that stuff. Hit the bell notification button as well.

Go to goodreads.com for us. That's Chris Voss. Also, follow the show and what we do. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you guys next time. Thank you, Chris.