Laney Katz Becker

Laney Katz Becker is an award-winning author, writer, and a former literary agent. Her books include the novels, In the Family Way and Dear Stranger, Dearest Friend, and the nonfiction anthology, Three Times Chai, a collection of rabbis’ favorite stories. When she’s not writing, Becker enjoys drawing, sewing, reading, long walks, playing tennis, and canasta. She is a graduate of Northwestern University, raised her two children in Westchester County, New York, and currently lives on the east coast of Florida with her husband and their Havanese.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take the readers into the story?

I think my book title, In the Family Way, does a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to communicating what my novel is about. First, the expression itself is a somewhat antiquated euphemism for saying a woman is pregnant. And while it may not alert readers that my book is set in the 1960s, it (hopefully) is a pretty clear indicator that it’s not a contemporary novel. My working title was With Child, which I also think says “historical,” but I changed it because I really preferred the word “family.” It has a warmth to it which gives it an added bonus for readers who may be unfamiliar with the expression “in the family way;” they’d still know the book involves families and a sense of community. And since, at its heart, my novel is about the friendship between a group of suburban housewives—and an unwed 15-year-old mother-to-be—I felt family was the perfect descriptor!

What’s in a name?

It’s a Jewish custom to name babies after those who’ve already passed away, rather than someone who is still living, (which is why you don’t meet young Jewish men who share their dad’s name). Anyway…my novel is narrated by three different voices (all in the same time period) and two of the narrators are sisters and are Jewish. They’re named Lily and Rose. Their mother named them after relatives who’d died, but giving them both “flower names” was her added twist. It was a way to help the reader know a little bit about the mother, even though she has died years before the novel opens. It was also a practical decision as I felt it would help readers keep the characters straight, particularly at the beginning when everyone is being introduced. Another thing about names in my book that readers will surely realize: My chapter titles for the married women all use their husband’s first names and their married surnames—so there’s Mrs. David Berg, and Mrs. Marty Siegel, because it was 1965 which was before the women’s movement, when women/housewives didn’t have their own identities. Under each “Mrs.” name is the woman’s actual name, but it’s in smaller type and in parenthesis, appearing as (Lily) or (Rose). The type is actually helping to convey that the women are parenthetical to their husbands, and smaller in stature. (I absolutely love that something as simple as type can convey so much!)

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Beginnings are harder for me and I definitely futz with them a lot more. I think that’s especially true because I tend to write my novels in a linear order…and while I might have a pretty good idea where I’m going, I typically make myself wait until I’m at least half-way through my first draft before I allow myself to write the ending. Then I go back and pick up where I left off and start writing in order again. By the time I finish my first draft, I know my characters so much better than when I started. So, as I work my way through my second draft, I find myself reading dialogue and thinking “she would never say” or discovering actions she would/wouldn’t take. But only after writing 300ish pages do I have the confidence that I know—I truly know—exactly how a character would behave. And that means rewriting the opening. Again.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

I think there’s a bit of me in all of my characters. But in this novel I needed a strong matriarchal Jewish grandma, so I not only based her on my own Grandma Mollie, I actually named her Grandma Mollie. But I didn’t stop there. Hoping my kids and grandkids—and any other offspring who may be born after I’ve passed away—would maybe (?) have a copy of my novel, I gave my own Grandma Mollie’s backstory to the character of Grandma Mollie, assuring that future generations would know from where they come. In short, I memorialized my grandma because that’s the joy of being an author—you can do that sort of thing because you’re in charge…and unless someone like you asks me about it, no one is the wiser!

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

In the Family Way was inspired by politics, for sure. I came up with the idea after the Supreme Court handed down the Dobbs decision, overturning Roe v. Wade and a woman’s constitutional right to abortion care. When that occurred, I was watching the news and saw a 20-something protestor holding a sign that said We Cannot Go Back. I scoffed, thinking she wasn’t old enough to appreciate what times were like “back then.” I did some research to fill in my own memories about women’s in the 1960s. Then I decided that someone really should write a book about it so women today would appreciate how far we’ve come, but also recognize that these days we’re on a slippery slope. And then I remembered Toni Morrison’s advice when she said “If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.” So I did.

Visit Laney Katz Becker's website.

--Marshal Zeringue