We chat with author Jessica M. Goldstein about Retro, which follows an out-of-work actress who gets a job as a tour guide for an ultra-luxury time travel company—only to discover her trips to the past could upend her present.
Hi, Jessica! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I’m a journalist covering all things culture. I got my start as an intern at Seventeen magazine during the height of Twilight mania and my first real journalism job in the Style section of the Washington Post. I love to dig into how and why certain people and ideas become popular. Some of my favorite pieces have been about cultural phenomena that I can’t get out of my head: how everyone in the entertainment industry started getting veneers and now they all seem to have the same smile; why so many modern movies look “meh”; how “Mr. Brightside” became a generational anthem. I also write humor pieces for McSweeney’s—including this one roasting my alma mater for not being part of the college admissions bribery scandal—and recaps for Vulture, where I follow the increasingly-illogical misadventures of Emily Cooper across Paris and beyond.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I can’t remember ever not loving writing and stories. I was constantly reading and writing as a kid. I always had a very vivid imagination. And I was very lucky to have many adults in my life who encouraged that passion and took me seriously, even when I was little.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: Caps For Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina
- The one that made you want to become an author: It’s a tie between Matilda by Roald Dahl and Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: I am a Ferrante freak. I haven’t stopped thinking about the Neapolitan Quartet since I first read it and I never will! Fortunately I have been able to find friends to join the cult with me, and we obsess over Lila and Lenù together. And the book that is always on my mind and has been since childhood is The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster.
Your debut novel, Retro, is out June 23rd! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Nostalgia, escapism, euphoria, heartbreak, cigarettes. Alternatively: Was everything really better before?
What can readers expect?
Retro is an epic adventure novel; a surreal, zany workplace comedy; and a coming-of-age story about a young woman who tries to run away from her bleak-looking future by spending all her time partying in the past. Like if Francis Ha worked at Lumon Industries.
Where did the inspiration for Retro come from?
I started with the idea of a time travel agency. I loved the wordplay! And I wanted to write about how strange work can be, about casual corporate cruelty, odd office norms, and the bizarre relationships (like a work wife or nemesis) that flourish in these spaces.
It was the thick of the pandemic (2021), and I was struck by how people across the political spectrum were enamored with the past and its superiority over the present, from far-right operatives pushing a “Make America Great Again” platform to progressives lamenting the rise of AI, the surveillance state, and the devastation of climate change. As a journalist, I couldn’t avoid reading the news, which was so depressing and relentless. I was really struggling to feel hopeful about the future.
At the same time, I watched the sped-up nostalgia cycle come for my adolescence, as a generation juuuuust too young to remember the early 2000s became obsessed with all things Y2K. I knew, intellectually, that our ideas about the past are more fantasy than reality, but it was VERY different to see people romanticize a recent past that I had actually lived through and that I remembered so well. I promise we were not thinking “wow, 2002 is the best time ever to be alive!!!”
All of that energy, and those big, animating questions—about hope and nostalgia and fear and yearning—came together as I wrote and gave me the clarity I needed to see Retro as a novel.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
Retro is a start-up, and I had such a blast building out the impossible world of the office. I thought about the outrageous perks big tech companies, especially in that 2010s heyday, were offering their employees to keep them happy (…so they would literally never leave the office), and I put a Retro flair on all of those treats, like having Four Loko and original recipe Coca-Cola on tap in the Commissary.
I also kept returning to that great Arthur C. Clarke line: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” It gave me permission to make this place capable of anything, really, and it was so much fun to figure out how Retro’s futuristic technology would be packaged in these pleasing, nostalgic ways, like the Exchange—where people in the present can communicate with people on trips to the past—which is run by operators, called Zeroes, who man a switchboard that can connect your calls with time-travelers.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
I think plot is that hardest thing. It can feel so artificial if you don’t get it right. Like you’re just bopping your toys around or smashing your Barbies together. I found it really helpful to put all the scenes on index cards so I could see the whole draft at once. I’d move them around on a bulletin board to get a sense of how the action was going, how long it had been since certain characters were front and center, where to reveal and withhold information.
This is your debut novel! What was the road to becoming a published author like for you?
I’ve been a writer all my life, but I took a long detour from writing fiction seriously. It was all I did as a kid, but in college I wound up concentrating mostly on journalism, which is what I’ve been doing ever since. But once I had this idea I knew I needed to make it happen. While writing Retro, I was doing journalism by day and fiction on nights and weekends; after I sold the manuscript, the hierarchy flipped. Which was and still is pretty surreal, to be honest with you! It’s very cool to have this be my day job. Definitely the best day job I’ve ever had. (When you read Retro, you’ll see how I feel about most office jobs.)
What’s next for you?
Going into my local bookstores, seeing Retro on the shelf, crying, and repeating, probably for the rest of the summer, possibly for the rest of my life.
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up? Any you’ve read so far this year that you’ve enjoyed?
I decided this year would be my Caro year, and it’s taken over my life — in the best way. I started with The Power Broker in January and went straight into the LBJ books. I’m halfway through the third one, Master of the Senate. And I just saw that Caro’s almost 1,000 pages into book five, so, maybe that timing will work out perfectly for us. Imagine if I finish The Passage of Power when the fifth volume comes out?! Totally b’shert. I did still make time for fiction, of course. Two of my favorites that I’ve read this year were Dwelling by Emily Hunt Kivel and The Children by Melissa Albert. They’re both gorgeously-written books where the world of the story oozes beyond the edges of reality.
