# Allegra Goodman on “This is Not About Us” (Or So We Tell Ourselves)

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-five-books-jewish-authors-on-the-books-that-shaped-them-7105649/allegra-goodman-on-this-is-not-about-us-or-so-we-tell-ourselves
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-five-books-jewish-authors-on-the-books-that-shaped-them-7105649/allegra-goodman-on-this-is-not-about-us-or-so-we-tell-ourselves.md
Podcast: [The Five Books: Jewish Authors on the Books That Shaped Them](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-five-books-jewish-authors-on-the-books-that-shaped-them-7105649)
Published: 2026-02-17T08:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/mgln.ai/e/51/tracking.swap.fm/track/tcQd6Q6C0RUUlOHq1Ytj/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.megaphone.fm/TPG1025176792.mp3?updated=1770765458
Audio file: https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/mgln.ai/e/51/tracking.swap.fm/track/tcQd6Q6C0RUUlOHq1Ytj/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.megaphone.fm/TPG1025176792.mp3?updated=1770765458
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Duration seconds: 2704

## Resource

Allegra Goodman tells us how This Is Not About Us grew like a family tree from her New Yorker short story “Apple Cake,” as she continued writing about the Rubinstein family for over a decade. We discuss how her perspective - and the world - has changed since she wrote The Family Markowitz in her 20s, and how Keats’ concept of negative capability has shaped her writing. We also hear about a book that she found very dull until a bad cold taught her patience. Allegra Goodman is a writer of extraordinary range and precision. Across novels and stories, she’s written about faith, ambition, family, science, history, and the quiet negotiations of everyday life, always with clarity, wit, and deep compassion for her characters. Allegra’s many books include among them Sam, a Jenna’s Book Club pick, Paradise Park, Kaaterskill Falls (a National Book Award finalist), and Isola (a Reese’s Book Club Pick.) Her latest novel of interconnected short stories, This Is Not About Us, brings all of that together. It follows the Rubinstein family over many years, through moments that feel small until they suddenly don’t. Allegra Goodman’s Five Books: 1. A book that is in conversation with your latest work: The Family Markowitz 2. A Book You Changed Your Mind About: The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James 3. A passage from a book that has stayed with you or has changed how you think about things: A famous passage from one of John Keats' letters about Negative Capability 4. ⁠The Book You’re Reading Now: Dickens the Enchanter: Inside the Explosive Imagination of the Great Storyteller by Peter Conrad 5. The Author’s Latest Work: This Is Not About Us by Allegra Goodman Allegra’s First Appearance on The Five Books can be found here: Allegra Goodman on Making the Exotic Familiar, and Finding the Modern…

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## Transcript

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