Ahead of his conversation with Malcolm Gladwell next Sunday, February 4, writer Mitch Albom (Tuesdays with Morrie) sat down with us to talk about his new novel, The Little Liar — and his perspective on why his books have resonated with millions of readers all over the world.
The Little Liar is your first novel about the Holocaust. Why was it important for you to tell this story now?
I didn’t set out to write a Holocaust novel. I wanted to tell a story about the truth, and the price we pay when we lose sight of it. But if there was ever a time when the truth was abused, it was during the Holocaust. The first quarter of the book takes place during that time, and the rest of it follows 40 years of ramifications for a lie — a single lie. Given the time that we’re in, a lot of people have ended up coming to the book thinking of it as being about antisemitism, and of course that’s part of it, but I set out to write about the truth.
Why did you want to tell a story about the truth?
Every book I’ve written since Tuesdays with Morrie has contained a slice of Tuesdays with Morrie. I tend to approach my books differently than some other authors might — it’s not enough for me to have a good plot and good characters. It has to contain some kind of lesson. I look for books like that myself, and I seem incapable of even starting a book unless I think there’s going to be something for the reader to take away. In The Five People You Meet in Heaven, it was that every life matters — there’s no such thing as a nobody. The Stranger in the Lifeboat is about belief. This book is about the truth. I pick areas in which I think I have something to learn, and perhaps something to say, and then I look for a story that will give me the stage to say it.
You’ll be talking to Malcolm Gladwell at 92NY. What is your connection with him? What are you most looking forward to in the discussion?
Malcolm is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met — I know I have to be on my toes for any question he’s going to throw at me. I like Malcolm a great deal. We met a few years back. He was working on a podcast about Paul Simon, and I’m a huge Paul Simon fan. Our publishers got us together because I wanted to talk to him about that experience. I don’t think he knew that I was a musician or that I knew as much about Paul Simon as I did — I literally know every Paul Simon lyric backwards and forwards, it’s kind of nuts — and at the end of it he said, “You should have done this project, not me!” [Laughs] We became friendly after that. He’s a curious person, and he’s very good at dealing with big topics shrunk down to the everyday. That’s exactly what The Little Liar is.
You’ve reached millions of readers across the world — Tuesdays with Morrie alone is the bestselling memoir of all time — people seem to feel a connection with you that’s uncommon for most writers. Why do you think your books speak so intimately to such a wide audience?
That’s a good question. I think Tuesdays with Morrie established that connection. I can’t really take credit for Tuesdays with Morrie. I’m just the guy who wrote it down. When people read that book, they either identified with Morrie or me. In Morrie they saw their teacher, their parent, their grandparent, or someone who influenced them. In me, they saw someone who was lost, wondering why life didn’t feel happier or more satisfying. And there are a lot of people in that second category. I think people came to me through that portal. In the books I’ve written since, those people have come to trust me to explore other issues they’ve been thinking about. Maybe they’re looking for a little Morrie wisdom — believe me, I’m trying. Sometimes people come up to me and say, “Oh Morrie, I so like your books,” and I say, “I’m not Morrie — I was the stupid one, remember?” [Laughs] Maybe they’re confused, maybe they think Morrie is writing the book and not me, but hopefully I’ve learned something in the 29 years since I sat with him. I’m very aware that I’m now closer to Morrie’s age than I am to the age I was when I wrote the book. I like to think that I’ve learned something. I’m just trying to share it with people.
What do you hope audience members at 92NY take away with them from your event in celebration of The Little Liar?
We live in a time when truth is in great danger. People are choosing to listen to their own version of the truth, and they don’t want to hear anything else. We choose our own news stations and who to follow on social media. There can’t be 16 different versions of the truth. When I wrote The Little Liar, I did a lot of research. It’s not even the big lies that were scary to me. It’s the small ones, like telling people on a train platform, “You’re going to new homes and new jobs, and everything’s going to be fine.” In fact, they were going to concentration camps. That’s what this little hero of the book gets tricked into — telling a lie. The callousness of using someone to lie to someone else, without even thinking twice about it, it shows how far we can go when we lose the precious value of the truth. I don’t want us to get to that point. Malcolm and I will explore questions like this. What’s the biggest lie you ever told? What are the ramifications of that lie on other people? That’s what the book explores. The little boy in that book spends the better part of 40 years trying to be forgiven for this lie that wasn’t even his fault. And that ties back to Tuesdays with Morrie — Morrie and I talked a lot about the importance of forgiveness. I hope it sends people home thinking — thinking and smiling.
Mitch Albom talks to Malcolm Gladwell about The Little Liar next Sun, Feb 4.