Full Transcript for T. Geronimo Johnson, The Occidental Book of the Dead

produced. 00:04:46.850 --> 00:04:52.983 Um, okay, but it was such an actually great companion piece to the book to me. 00:04:53.463 --> 00:05:08.822 Two things that stood out, and then we're gonna get into the book for a second, but in both the book and the documentary, you're dedicating it to the future memory of white supremacy, and so I kept thinking about it, and the writing of this book, how long did it take you? 00:05:09.172 --> 00:05:17.471 And did your experience working on the documentary in any way bleed into what you were already creating with this? 00:05:17.672 --> 00:05:37.841 I'm, I'm sure that it all bled together in, in some way, but the documentary was started and shot and edited, and on its way out to festivals I think maybe a good, uh, when I was well into this book, and it was completed well before I, I finished the novel. 00:05:38.221 --> 00:05:38.632 Okay. 00:05:39.072 --> 00:05:44.552 So it, it was kind of happening, um, alongside the, the writing at one point. 00:05:45.182 --> 00:05:57.322 But I suppose that this, you might say interest in the intersection of, of race and religion is common to both, and, hopefully understandably so if you've watched the doc 00:05:57.584 --> 00:05:59.653 Yeah, 100%, and that's why I said it. 00:05:59.764 --> 00:06:01.394 It made so much sense to me. 00:06:01.824 --> 00:06:16.074 It resonated in particular'cause I, I've moved up to the Seattle area, which is where the documentary, for those people who haven't seen it, and I should add that, and I will put a link'cause, it's available to watch on Canopy, which is where I saw it. 00:06:16.913 --> 00:06:33.884 But again, having just come off the book it was just interesting the kind of intersections between the two things, and not only the conversations that were happening in that documentary, but how these conversations are so prevalent in what the book is talking about as well. 00:06:35.444 --> 00:06:40.293 So for our listeners, do you have an elevator pitch for the book? 00:06:40.937 --> 00:06:44.898 I'm going to give you two elevator pitches, if you don't mind. 00:06:44.918 --> 00:06:45.887 They're absent summary. 00:06:45.887 --> 00:06:48.937 I feel as if a summary often is not my best friend. 00:06:49.377 --> 00:06:55.697 So, uh, I'm gonna give you two bit pitches, one that I wrote, one that, uh, was shared with me by an early reader. 00:06:55.918 --> 00:06:59.177 Whichever one you like the most, I will take credit for. 00:07:00.437 --> 00:07:00.798 Okay. 00:07:01.267 --> 00:07:06.841 So, the first one is the Occidental Book of the Dead is-- how would I put this? 00:07:06.942 --> 00:07:14.711 It's like receiving the mission impossible, impossible mission in the form of a novel. 00:07:16.252 --> 00:07:17.622 This is the first one, all right? 00:07:18.271 --> 00:07:23.271 Because of the way it kind of winds down towards the end and un-undoes itself in some ways. 00:07:23.625 --> 00:07:38.367 and the second I will give is that it's, as if Bram Stoker were writing Dracula while vampires were stalking him and trying to hunt down and kill everyone he knows and loves 00:07:38.574 --> 00:07:39.175 Wow. 00:07:39.586 --> 00:07:44.107 These are the two elevator pitches that I have, available this afternoon 00:07:44.778 --> 00:07:47.459 You've summed them up so well. 00:07:47.488 --> 00:07:52.959 That second one especially is, is so right on, and you've described... 00:07:53.199 --> 00:07:53.858 Oh, that's great. 00:07:53.894 --> 00:08:01.254 then, I'll say I'll take credit for the second one, but being raised Catholic, I, I can't keep a secret and must admit that the second one is not the one that I wrote 00:08:01.492 --> 00:08:01.783 Okay. 00:08:01.783 --> 00:08:05.392 For, whoever, came up with that previously, great job to them. 00:08:05.853 --> 00:08:06.913 That's excellent. 00:08:07.036 --> 00:08:07.346 okay. 00:08:07.346 --> 00:08:11.336 So when did the idea for this start to germinate, and what are the idea for this? 00:08:11.346 --> 00:08:16.427 Or sh- uh, uh, I mean, I, I probably, I'm, I'm assuming started with your protagonist. 00:08:16.427 --> 00:08:18.697 Yeah, there, there are, there are a couple ways to answer this. 00:08:18.716 --> 00:08:33.726 You know, in one way, the project itself began maybe 20 years ago as a story cycle when I was living and working in the Fourth Ward in Atlanta, and the story cycle had perhaps six or seven different points of view. 00:08:34.476 --> 00:08:49.200 And I was interested in capturing the experience of living in this neighborhood that was rapidly changing, and thinking about what it meant to all of the various stakeholders, you might say. 00:08:49.649 --> 00:09:01.807 You have the people who are investing and see, this great opportunity to acquire, underpriced or kind of like discounted land that's in the city. 00:09:02.307 --> 00:09:09.952 There are also a lot of people at, at this time in that neighborhood who are homeless, or without permanent homes. 00:09:10.482 --> 00:09:12.802 They have a different perspective on what's going on. 00:09:12.802 --> 00:09:18.812 And then you have the long-term renters and also the long-term homeowners. 00:09:18.873 --> 00:09:30.623 And for them, ironically, as, you know, most people I think could imagine now, the, the improvements to the public services do not bode well for their future, 00:09:31.249 --> 00:09:31.538 Mm-hmm. 00:09:31.972 --> 00:09:32.352 right? 00:09:32.413 --> 00:09:50.846 And so I was trying to, capture this experience because it felt as if this disorienting acceleration, this, this sudden and rapid change said so much about history over a longer term as well. 00:09:50.917 --> 00:10:12.301 and to me it was also of particular note because this area is so close to, Sweet Auburn, which was at one time, I believe, the wealthiest Black neighborhood in America, and also so close to the King Center You know, so I was just trying to capture these, like, utterly disparate perspectives on, on

what was happening. 00:10:13.201 --> 00:10:19.561 And my first novel, Hold It, actually grew out of one of those stories in the cycle. 00:10:20.250 --> 00:10:31.327 And this novel, The Occidental Book of the Dead, grew out of two, because one of the stories was about Sirius, and, I believe that was actually the first one I wrote. 00:10:31.918 --> 00:10:54.467 And then another story was about George Washington Johnson, this cop who's come back to this area where he grew up, this area that he was desperate to escape from, and sees it becoming, in a way, something that he'd always hoped that it would be, but these changes will not be available to him 00:10:56.552 --> 00:11:00.302 One of the things that he talks about, as a young man, he goes to Germany. 00:11:00.562 --> 00:11:02.302 He's fighting in the war. 00:11:02.351 --> 00:11:13.981 But he's stationed in Germany, and he talks about how in Germany he found himself accidentally passing, not for white, but for passing as a normal human being, and that so resonated with me. 00:11:13.981 --> 00:11:21.822 It reminded me a lot of what, what Baldwin used to talk about in terms of Paris and, his reasons for going. 00:11:21.841 --> 00:11:24.631 And I, I didn't even realize until I was... 00:11:24.719 --> 00:11:40.639 talking with, your publicist assistant about scheduling stuff and, you know, she'd said you're in Italy,'cause one of my first questions was gonna be, I was so curious living in Italy and what your experience has been like in terms of a Black man living in Europe. 00:11:40.731 --> 00:11:45.595 And if you feel or have felt some of those things that he did or does 00:11:47.687 --> 00:11:49.346 Yeah, that, that's a great question. 00:11:49.376 --> 00:11:51.517 I should clarify, I don't actually live in Italy. 00:11:51.517 --> 00:11:53.076 I spend a lot of time in Italy. 00:11:53.197 --> 00:11:54.254 Um, you. 00:11:54.506 --> 00:11:58.427 yes,'cause I, I'd won, the Rome Prize a few years back, so I spent a lot of time there. 00:11:58.476 --> 00:12:01.226 And, right now I'm visiting my sister in Paris. 00:12:01.726 --> 00:12:10.211 But there's certainly some sense of the, the culture being different, for me, probably for everybody. 00:12:10.211 --> 00:12:25.941 But given that there's, I wanna say broadly, maybe a little less anxiety about violence, it does feel, like, calmer and, you could say more accepting in that way. 00:12:26.130 --> 00:12:35.994 You know, and for generations, African American artists have, decamped to Europe where they felt they could live more freely. 00:12:36.171 --> 00:12:47.191 But the, the interesting thing about, George Washington Johnson's revelation in that moment, he doesn't really realize it until it, it's too late and he's on the way home, if I remember correctly. 00:12:47.331 --> 00:13:02.083 The thing is that this, this whole notion of passing is something that we often discuss in terms of race, but it also feels to me that it's a universal burden in some ways.

00:13:02.394 --> 00:13:12.193 We can really put our fingers on it with race, particularly when we think of the color line and people literally passing for white in the past and presently. 00:13:12.461 --> 00:13:18.230 But there's so many ways in which, like when we talk about code switching, this is a type of passing, right? 00:13:18.443 --> 00:13:23.994 and you know, there, there are all these pressures to conform if you're not mainstream. 00:13:24.663 --> 00:13:38.004 And all of these pressures to me are forms of passing, you know, and forms of assimilation, which, uh, in some ways I can't not think of as being corrosive to the soul 00:13:40.768 --> 00:13:40.957 100%. 00:13:41.977 --> 00:13:44.418 Yeah, I think about it a lot'Cause, yeah, you're right. 00:13:44.437 --> 00:13:46.158 It is not just only skin color. 00:13:46.177 --> 00:13:54.278 It's just that it, that is the most easiest to identify for an obvious reason, in a way. 00:13:54.278 --> 00:14:02.461 But I think a lot of it, a lot in regards to sexuality, but I think the code-switching thing is so right, and so many people do it, and aren't even aware that they're doing it. 00:14:03.051 --> 00:14:19.613 It's an interesting thing with George Washington, your, your protagonist, being married to a white woman and helping, raise his stepson, who is white, and I'd love to just ask you about your, intentionality in terms of creating this relationship and, how that fed into your narrative 00:14:20.115 --> 00:14:20.546 Yeah. 00:14:20.645 --> 00:14:22.686 This is a good question as, as well. 00:14:22.686 --> 00:14:27.336 I don't know that I have,, a ready answer because it developed organically. 00:14:27.645 --> 00:14:33.905 And in, in this situation, George absolutely loves Colleen. 00:14:34.046 --> 00:14:34.676 He loves her. 00:14:34.859 --> 00:14:52.793 But he also, as he becomes aware of the ways in which he's, Kind of moderated his behavior or been influenced by the way he thinks he should be or the pressures to assimilate and so forth and so on. 00:14:53.004 --> 00:15:06.667 He starts to wonder if it's possible at all that what he thinks of as his love for her is in some way corrupted by his desire to escape Blackness, right? 00:15:07.486 --> 00:15:24.811 And so part of, part of what's happening there is creating the space for someone to just ask themselves or think about, perhaps consciously, perhaps not, the extent to which these types of pressures. 00:15:24.811 --> 00:15:30.760 Right now I'm talking about racial pressure, but there's also pressure around, like, sexual orientation. 00:15:30.961 --> 00:15:32.801 Like anything that's not mainstream. 00:15:33.291 --> 00:15:45.520 You know, there's this, this question about, like, how, how do these pressures corrupt human relationships, whether someone is conscious of it or not, right? 00:15:45.614 --> 00:15:52.874 And this is one of the things that the book's kind of, I would say, shining a light on. 00:15:53.283 --> 00:16:16.553 And it's

not making a claim in a fixed claim in one direction or another, but I think it creates a space for thinking about, social pressures within the smaller, more intimate, and often almost overwhelmingly, like, personal space of interpersonal relationships. 00:16:16.860 --> 00:16:17.289 Hmm. 00:16:17.453 --> 00:16:29.083 'Cause, you know, it's just so difficult and so hard to govern those relationships or be in those relationships without being aware of our social profiles. 00:16:32.244 --> 00:16:45.354 Yeah, and the other thing that I kept thinking about so much while reading this, and it kind of speaks in relation to what you're just talking about now, is Isabel Wilkerson's Caste and kind of that net of all of it for everyone. 00:16:45.823 --> 00:16:59.134 But I do think, looking at these relationships that he has in this book and Anyone's awareness of where they fit in this social structure, whether they know it or not. 00:16:59.267 --> 00:17:07.784 I think about his Well, I'm thinking specifically of the relationship between white people and Black people, and at all different levels. 00:17:07.854 --> 00:17:17.007 I mean, I have friends who are Black, and I, I think about this when we're together and going into conversations that feel delicate. 00:17:17.336 --> 00:17:37.884 I, I think a lot about, especially about when we were all in lockdown, and we were all at home and watching George Floyd, and we were having these big conversations about all this, and then having conversations with friends of mine who are white, and just the levels of understanding or not understanding, or how deep-rooted things actually are. 00:17:37.913 --> 00:17:41.243 And I think that's what you're doing in so much of this book. 00:17:41.590 --> 00:17:49.611 I think one of the brilliant things that you do is, and this is not a surprise, we're not giving anything away, that the novel is really almost two parts. 00:17:49.621 --> 00:18:04.411 The first part being this kind of idealized, cinematic, idea of George Washington Johnson, and then it breaks into the second part, which is really his version of the story, which is something parallel. 00:18:04.671 --> 00:18:10.903 And at the time going through it, it's almost like I couldn't see the forest through the trees yet, if that makes sense. 00:18:11.833 --> 00:18:20.843 And then getting into the second half of it, the clarity that started to come through, it was literally the, blinders coming off your eyes, if that makes sense 00:18:21.105 --> 00:18:22.674 Right, right, right. 00:18:22.738 --> 00:18:39.421 Well, this is definitely, one of the, the aims of the, the structure to create the possibility that someone might just become more aware of the extent to which we're all influenced by the, the narratives that we encounter. 00:18:39.871 --> 00:18:50.691 And, you know, the funny thing about narratives is we think about books and, you know, for a while, for a while this word was kind of parked at the academy, but it's like broken out. 00:18:50.770 --> 00:18:52.770 It's, it's everywhere, you know? 00:18:52.770 --> 00:19:03.131 And but the thing is when we think about narratives, we still think often about, books, films, maybe country music, but we encounter them in commercials, right? 00:19:03.351 --> 00:19:09.010 They're, they're everywhere and, and these narratives are constructing our view of reality. 00:19:09.971 --> 00:19:19.941 This is what they do, in the same way that, religious stories have helped us understand reality, you know, for most of our time here on, on Earth. 00:19:20.010 --> 00:19:33.280 And it's a sticky, sticky situation because on one hand, you don't wanna have a, an overwhelming number of stories that show bad things happening to good people for no reason. 00:19:33.290 --> 00:19:34.651 This is dispiriting, right? 00:19:34.651 --> 00:19:36.780 This, this goes back to like Aristotle. 00:19:37.191 --> 00:20:04.365 But it's hard in, in the marketplace to have a lot of stories, where only good things happen or where the end is always resolved positively and not imagine that it starts to somewhat, mm, let's say like entrance people or create the illusion that, that things are better than they are. 00:20:04.424 --> 00:20:20.575 It's kind of like, you know, we talk about the great man strain of history, like how one person has saved the world or one person is responsible solely for, winning a battle and so forth and so on. 00:20:20.855 --> 00:20:31.397 So I feel like in, in history, people are coming more to understand that, oh, it's, it's not just MLK or it's not only Rosa Parks, right? 00:20:31.998 --> 00:20:48.357 But when we think about narrative overall, I don't know that we're yet at, as a society at a point where we're starting to question the extent to which the narratives that we're inundated with are actually, departures from reality 00:20:48.641 --> 00:20:49.881 Do you think we'll ever get there? 00:20:50.605 --> 00:20:51.825 I don't, I don't know, you know? 00:20:51.924 --> 00:20:59.904 One of the, questions that's been popular over the last at least decade is who gets to tell what story? 00:21:00.393 --> 00:21:00.673 Mm-hmm. 00:21:01.055 --> 00:21:08.414 But I feel as if, uh, a bigger question is what stories do we actually have the capacity to accept? 00:21:08.755 --> 00:21:12.855 The, like, what are we actually able to accept? 00:21:12.855 --> 00:21:15.508 What are we able to, process, you know? 00:21:15.508 --> 00:21:28.520 So when we think about memoir and we think about specifically, um, say, the slave narrative, it serves a very distinct and important political function. 00:21:28.520 --> 00:21:42.601 But if you were to imagine that all of the slaves or the majority of slaves wrote slave narratives, the majority of, of those stories would not be stories about, that ended with people achieving freedom and reaching the North. 00:21:44.411 --> 00:21:50.144 And Obviously, that would not be a popular genre. 00:21:50.585 --> 00:22:00.444

You know, I don't know that people would've had the capacity at the time, nor would they have the capacity now to like process human suffering on this scale. 00:22:00.444 --> 00:22:03.795 So this is, this is kind of one of the-- this is one of the problems. 00:22:04.315 --> 00:22:07.035 Um, and we see it in the coverage of wars. 00:22:07.295 --> 00:22:08.805 We see it every day in the coverage of wars. 00:22:08.884 --> 00:22:15.255 You know, the question is what are people willing to hear if it upsets their view of reality? 00:22:15.325 --> 00:22:47.335 And so, you know, this is one of the, the questions I guess that the book is asking or suggesting that the reader ask themself, while at the same time, you know, hopefully being entertaining and, and fun to read at moments despite everything that's going on, um, and providing like very specific readerly pleasures so that all these questions I'm talking about are secondary or arise really only after you've finished reading or you're like well into the book and you're just going with the flow 00:22:47.882 --> 00:22:48.241 Yeah. 00:22:48.241 --> 00:23:10.872 It's also, I love a book that, that makes me question,"Okay, do these things exist?" And so much of what you're inserting in the narrative in a very kind of subtle way that just feels exploratory, like when you're describing the different areas of Atlanta, which you call Atlantis in the book, which I'm curious about that as well in a moment. 00:23:10.882 --> 00:23:17.652 But, you know, you're talking a lot about redlining and, what has happened to a lot of these neighborhoods in these areas. 00:23:18.031 --> 00:23:23.392 But it's done in such a way that when it started, I wasn't aware of even what you were doing. 00:23:23.392 --> 00:23:24.682 I thought,"Oh, this is interesting. 00:23:24.692 --> 00:23:48.815 We're getting information on areas in the city." And then as it kept coming up, I thought,"Oh, this is really wonderfully subtle, but also very pointed at the same time." A lot of this book is very funny, and you satirize certain things so well, and one of them is the entertainment industry, and as someone who works in it, I really appreciated that. 00:23:49.434 --> 00:24:02.969 And as the first section ends, kind of like an uplifting, rousing film you have the, the cast of characters which really made me laugh, but my favorite part, as somebody who is in casting, it said, the film was done by The Gospel Syndication. 00:24:03.239 --> 00:24:26.148 It"Has been brought to you by Macintosh Silicon Studios, a multicultural collective of diverse beliefs, gender identities, and sexual orientation who enthusiastically embrace diversity casting." Now, I read that again this morning in light of the fact that I'm reading this morning, for the first time in five years, the Emmy Awards did not award anyone of color an 00:24:26.411 --> 00:24:27.000 Oh, really? 00:24:27.230 --> 00:24:27.780 Really? 00:24:28.411 --> 00:24:28.601 Hmm 00:24:28.994 --> 00:24:31.394 I just found that really interesting. 00:24:31.414 --> 00:24:58.388 As someone who's worked in this business for a long time, and over the years there has been such a tremendous push for diversity casting and this idea of, why representation matters, why it is so important that people see themselves in specific places, and why the people who are experiencing many of these things should be the, I feel, should be the ones telling these stories. 00:24:59.308 --> 00:25:04.535 Um, and that's what I gleaned from all of that thing just by reading that one thing at the end of this section. 00:25:05.203 --> 00:25:06.644 yeah, that's, that's an important, an important point. 00:25:06.644 --> 00:25:15.354 You know, when I, when I was at the, uh, ed school at, at Berkeley, one of my areas was urban ed, which is literally about as it sounds. 00:25:15.413 --> 00:25:33.773 And, um, I remember being in classrooms with the undergrads who were well-intentioned and trying to, like, acclimate themselves to the, the cultural differences between the lives that they'd known and the lives of their students. 00:25:34.519 --> 00:25:34.960 Hmm. 00:25:35.423 --> 00:25:46.263 I would, um, you know, just hear them talking from time to time, and what came up so frequently was,"I did not know X, I did not know this," just they, they didn't know. 00:25:46.834 --> 00:25:53.493 Um, and what they didn't know was largely a result of just what they had been exposed to, right? 00:25:54.064 --> 00:26:00.023 This, this goes back to who's cast, but also, who's doing the writing, what kinds of stories can you tell, et cetera, et cetera. 00:26:00.493 --> 00:26:22.523 But then I think it also gets complicated when you do decide or at least acknowledge that you should have a, a more diverse range of creatives because there's, there's still this question of, okay, how, how do you frame the cultural gap'cause it still persists. 00:26:22.554 --> 00:26:23.284 It's still there. 00:26:23.294 --> 00:26:39.743 So, you know, these students I'm thinking of, they could have seen or they, they could have had the opportunity to see more films or television shows by people unlike themselves, but that doesn't mean that the show or the, the film is something that they're really gonna fully understand. 00:26:40.084 --> 00:26:52.134 So just the, the presence of that diverse person or that work by diverse people is not always enough or rarely is it enough, I think, to bridge the understanding gap. 00:26:52.300 --> 00:27:06.060 'Cause there's always too great of a, of a chance that in, in all work, no matter who's creating it, there's just a lot of inside baseball because of your assumption about who your reading audience is or who your viewing audience is. 00:27:07.851 --> 00:27:11.840 And if you-- of course, as you know, if you explain too much, you lose people. 00:27:11.901 --> 00:27:15.371 If you don't explain enough, you also lose people. 00:27:15.733 --> 00:27:26.423 And so I, I think that

when, when we think about diversity and representation or anything along those lines, it's, it's only the first step. 00:27:28.064 --> 00:27:29.564 It's really only the first step. 00:27:30.473 --> 00:27:51.192 And I remember hearing, Ishmael Reed do a reading at Stanford, and someone in the audience asked him with, with no small amount of hostility, why he was writing these books when most likely no one in his own neighborhood would read the books that he was writing And I forget, I forget his answer. 00:27:51.451 --> 00:27:55.511 But I remember, thinking at the moment that,, when Mr. 00:27:55.511 --> 00:28:05.221 Reid had different constituencies, he has his moral constituen- constituency for whom he's writing, and it doesn't matter whether they're reading it or not. 00:28:05.221 --> 00:28:13.761 That's his moral constituency, and we do things for our moral constituency out of love for them, not out of any expectation of reward. 00:28:14.231 --> 00:28:18.791 And then perhaps he has his economic constituency, which is completely different audience. 00:28:18.842 --> 00:28:27.892 These are the people who buy his books, who might be people who are quite distant, uh, you know, emotionally, psychologically, economically, who knows? 00:28:28.511 --> 00:28:30.862 And this has always, this has always stayed with me. 00:28:30.862 --> 00:28:32.652 It's been a long time, but this has always stayed with me. 00:28:32.731 --> 00:28:42.872 And so this is what I think about when I'm, when I'm working and I'm thinking about the different audiences that may or may not be engaged by my work. 00:28:42.902 --> 00:29:04.142 I'm thinking about, okay, I have my moral constituency, but then how do I strike the notes that are going to reach also those who might want to know more but aren't going to necessarily catch it without a little bit more hand-holding or explanation? 00:29:04.398 --> 00:29:08.278 And then how do I reach even someone who might be hostile? 00:29:09.219 --> 00:29:21.878 You know, so when I think about the power-- just this all to say that when I think about like diversity and, and art, it feels again as if it's just not-- it's not only about different people doing different things. 00:29:21.949 --> 00:29:33.209 It, it's also about really embracing as, as fully as possible and committing as fully as possible to the potentials of the craft and the potentials of the medium. 00:29:34.019 --> 00:29:35.298 Yeah, it's been a really interesting thing. 00:29:35.298 --> 00:29:40.439 I'm part of a group on Instagram, and we've been reading, all of the works of James Baldwin this year. 00:29:40.861 --> 00:29:41.080 Mm-hmm. 00:29:41.131 --> 00:29:42.131 Oh, wow. 00:29:42.265 --> 00:29:50.345 But having this experience of going through his canon has truly been one of the best things ever. 00:29:50.934 --> 00:30:03.036 And first of all- What he's working through regarding race, regarding sexuality, so many things that there's parallels with what you're doing. 00:30:04.046 --> 00:30:26.296 And yet, the kind of thing that kills me it's amazingly sobering is that these books written in the'60s, written in the early'70s, how little things have changed I just, I get through it and these conversations that we've been having in these groups, it's kind of, it's startling to me. 00:30:26.746 --> 00:30:39.536 It's also, I'm so taken with what he was accomplishing at that time that feels so relevant to now, but also just in terms of the relationship between these characters. 00:30:39.596 --> 00:30:46.655 And there's, a lot of interracial relationships and things that he was tackling, and I kept thinking,"How are these being perceived at the time? 00:30:46.655 --> 00:30:52.526 It's just been really fascinating and, in some ways sobering experience going through it 00:30:53.076 --> 00:30:54.236 I, I imagine. 00:30:54.378 --> 00:31:04.199 You know, the wild thing about this is though is that it, it, it feels like it was a long time ago, but it, it also wasn't a very long time ago. 00:31:05.009 --> 00:31:19.189 And I, I think that sometimes we expect change to happen, uh, more rapidly or progress to be strictly linear, like we're climbing steps or taking an escalator up, and it, and, you know, it just doesn't work like that. 00:31:19.239 --> 00:31:20.378 It just doesn't work like that. 00:31:21.028 --> 00:31:37.179 And so this, this feels especially frustrating because we want to see change happen now, but it's like steering a, an oil tanker, you know, down a, down a river, you know? 00:31:37.278 --> 00:31:38.798 I'm, I'm from New Orleans. 00:31:38.838 --> 00:31:52.398 I was, I was born there and went to high school there, and on any occasion when I'm down there and I, and I, and I'm near the river and a large ship is traveling down the Mississippi, just watching them do what they do is, um... 00:31:52.479 --> 00:31:53.239 It's fascinating. 00:31:53.278 --> 00:31:54.368 It's also very slow. 00:31:54.469 --> 00:31:55.808 It's like watching paint dry. 00:31:56.219 --> 00:32:01.429 But it's also really interesting if you're, if you're willing to watch it for 10, 10 or 15 minutes. 00:32:01.679 --> 00:32:13.838 So many small changes that over that 10 minutes don't always appear to be progress, and then there's a little bit of a shift. 00:32:14.469 --> 00:32:19.489 I think that, you know, American history or all history is, is a little bit like this. 00:32:20.019 --> 00:32:39.689 Um, and then I, I also think that at times we're, we're looking for various, like benchmarks or bits of evidence that can reassure us that that change has happened, and I, I don't know if we're always looking at the right benchmarks. 00:32:39.749 --> 00:32:44.118 I don't know what the correct benchmarks would be, you know, to be, to be honest. 00:32:44.226 --> 00:32:53.756 But I, I think that the change is going to take, a long time only, only because what we're talking about is so, it's so complex. 00:32:53.826 --> 00:33:00.296 When we're

talking about race, it's, it's very, it's very complex, and the way it's woven into the culture is also very complex. 00:33:00.566 --> 00:33:18.165 I read a couple articles maybe two or three years ago that both suggested that based on s- on studies, I don't-- I did not read the studies, but based on studies, women are maybe 250 to 300 years away from social parity. 00:33:18.895 --> 00:33:21.506 Now, that's, that's a long time. 00:33:22.016 --> 00:33:34.320 You know, w- when you, when you think about America and how old we are as a nation in terms of what's codified, uh, legally or has been- That means we're, you know, we're barely adolescent. 00:33:34.361 --> 00:33:38.191 This is, this is not to say that anything that's horrific is, is okay. 00:33:38.701 --> 00:34:05.121 It's just to say that I, um, I feel as though we have to continue to, like, commit ourselves to improvement, um, without being optimistic in ways that, that lead us into, like, like pessimism or despair when the changes don't happen as quickly as we would like to see them happen because there's so much unpacking to do. 00:34:05.121 --> 00:34:13.440 I mean, we could, we could say we're gonna end racism tomorrow, but it's not really gonna happen as long as we have a white Jesus. 00:34:13.460 --> 00:34:21.681 We could say we're gonna end sexism, but I, I don't know how that's gonna happen as long as the primary deity is male, right? 00:34:21.766 --> 00:34:23.067 long as we have Sydney Sweeney. 00:34:23.451 --> 00:34:25.210 Yeah, yeah, ex- Well, you know, yeah. 00:34:25.210 --> 00:34:29.541 I mean, there's-- it's just-- there's just, there's, there's just a lot, there's just so much going on. 00:34:29.541 --> 00:34:54.811 And, and then, uh, you know, the thing about, um, white supremacy at least that, that's interesting to me is that people conceive it, conceive of it as something that's r- that's most evident and, at the same time for this reason, limited to what happens to minorities, people of color, Black people, Latinx people, Asians, Native Americans, you know, First People, right? 00:34:55.181 --> 00:35:08.951 But actually, when you, when you think about it, white supremacy is-- it's really also this way of controlling white people, and it controls far more white people than it does anybody else. 00:35:09.920 --> 00:35:30.380 So if we think of it as something that is only apparent in what happens to minorities, how, how are we gonna ever really deconstruct it if we're not also really thinking critically about how it works on white people and the extent to which it's actually a Ponzi scheme? 00:35:30.751 --> 00:35:36.920 So it's a way of controlling white people as, as much, if not more than it's a way of controlling Black people, right? 00:35:37.690 --> 00:35:49.911 But if we're only looking at half the picture, uh, it's going to take a long time to, to resolve anything because it's like we're trying to, um, diagnose someone's condition but, we don't have all the information.

00:35:50.068 --> 00:35:52.038 It's all very, very complex. 00:35:52.072 --> 00:35:55.871 You sound very, um, optimistic to me, which I love hearing that. 00:35:55.972 --> 00:35:56.431 I, 00:35:57.840 --> 00:35:58.289 And maybe a 00:35:58.342 --> 00:36:03.152 like now I wanna make a joke about passing unintentionally for optimistic. 00:36:03.916 --> 00:36:04.416 Oh my God. 00:36:05.456 --> 00:36:14.376 But I, I have to say I'm heartened by listening to some of what you're saying because, uh, you know, I, I would be someone who would lean into the cynical side of things. 00:36:14.376 --> 00:36:23.070 I would lean into the side of getting frustrated and watching what's been happening in this country with the kind of rolling back of so many things. 00:36:23.400 --> 00:36:35.829 It almost feels like we're living in this, you know, satire of what it, what the, uh, uh, American dream or what the ideal is versus the reality of everything that's going around, and the gaslighting that's taking place. 00:36:35.829 --> 00:36:36.869 It's, it's difficult, too. 00:36:37.233 --> 00:36:41.233 I, I know like A-AI is not going to, uh, put writers out of business. 00:36:41.273 --> 00:36:51.784 The, the, the current government is going to put writers out of business because it will be impossible for them to, to come up with anything, um, more, more engaging than, than reality. 00:36:51.996 --> 00:37:09.356 The thing is that there's so many, there's so many reasons to, to despair, but there, there are always many reasons to despair, and throughout human history someone has always been suffering, and I think that we, we do tend to forget this from time to time. 00:37:09.806 --> 00:37:15.387 The, the challenge though is, is not to submit to the despair, right? 00:37:15.746 --> 00:37:28.496 The, the, the one thing hopefully that they, they, just this broad general they, cannot take from any of us is hope or our heart or our ability to think independently. 00:37:28.927 --> 00:37:39.094 And so it feels as if, like for me I have to Acknowledge the frustration or the fear, the despair, the rage. 00:37:39.465 --> 00:37:49.434 However, not succumb to it to the point where I cannot also, um, be witness to the beauty of life 00:37:49.898 --> 00:37:50.168 Mm-hmm. 00:37:50.394 --> 00:37:57.965 and the gift of being alive, and what it means to have family that loves you and friends that love you. 00:37:57.965 --> 00:38:09.414 And, you know, what it means in the small moments when you encounter, uh, like, like minds who are, you know, I wanna say who I think are good people, like minds in that way. 00:38:09.945 --> 00:38:12.125 Um, not evil echo chambers. 00:38:12.125 --> 00:38:24.094 I mean, so there are all these things going on at the same time, and then there are ways in which, there's certain die, die-hard beliefs about,, the, you know, racial purity, which are just, they're kind of like ridiculous. 00:38:24.094 --> 00:38:26.315 There's certain things that people are saying now

that are ridiculous. 00:38:26.315 --> 00:38:35.215 I mean, just the idea that it's kind of funny to me when people say they I don't know that I can fully explain this, Brett. 00:38:35.405 --> 00:38:39.474 Like, if we'd known each other longer, I'd have this shorthand and, and you would get it. 00:38:39.945 --> 00:38:41.344 So, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna try. 00:38:41.344 --> 00:38:47.744 It's not shorthand, but like there's this way in which people talk about, oh, America only for, you know, whites or whatever. 00:38:47.795 --> 00:38:52.184 But then you, if you really think about it, you think like what do they think that's gonna look like? 00:38:52.824 --> 00:39:22.885 It's like so there will be only you, and then suddenly the entire history of violence in the labor movement, like all of the union leaders that were assassinated, all of the workers that were killed by Pinkertons and like hired hands and all of this literally like white-on-white crime carried out at the behest of the wealthy against the wealthy whites, against working class whites. 00:39:22.934 --> 00:39:39.144 Somehow these, these people think that if it's an all-white country, it's going to be a paradise, and that the history of violence, of white-on-white violence which has defined the country as much as white-on-Black violence is gonna, you know, it's gonna drop away. 00:39:39.485 --> 00:39:42.644 Not to mention that where are they gonna get good food, 00:39:43.521 --> 00:39:43.710 Right. 00:39:44.454 --> 00:39:44.744 right? 00:39:46.331 --> 00:39:46.710 Right. 00:39:47.721 --> 00:39:49.050 Or frankly, so many things. 00:39:49.090 --> 00:39:52.190 Music, culture, I mean, the list goes on and on and on and on. 00:39:52.190 --> 00:40:08.751 As you reference in the book hilariously one point, you- there's a great section where you break down, it's like different sections of music, that George Washington is going through, and he re- references Olivia Newton John, and which just, it's so, it is. 00:40:08.760 --> 00:40:10.731 It's so on the nose when you say that all the time. 00:40:10.731 --> 00:40:17.811 Like, I, I, I've laughed about that quite a bit, too, the things, what do people think they're gonna actually be left with? 00:40:18.563 --> 00:40:22.322 Yes, it's like it's, it's already not working for you now. 00:40:22.626 --> 00:40:23.996 Yes, yes 00:40:24.103 --> 00:40:29.643 already, it's not working now and, um, yeah, it's gonna be worse 00:40:29.731 --> 00:41:20.684 the-- I think about, like, the outrage over the halftime show, and yet look at the success of that halftime show and how amazing it was, and, um, that probably despite a lot of white people flipping out for whatever reason because they thought, you know,"Why couldn't we have had George Strait doing our halftime show?" It's so funny, Geronimo, because I feel like we've discussed subjects within the book while actually not discussing the book directly, and maybe that's an okay thing But I do think so much of what this conversation we've been having is about all of these things that exist and what this book is about, and about this idea of how we can get along and how we relate to each other, in all manners of people and races and, uh, all of it 00:41:20.809 --> 00:41:21.469 Absolutely. 00:41:21.469 --> 00:41:24.469 I mean, at the core of the book, it's about his relationships. 00:41:24.588 --> 00:41:25.989 It's about love. 00:41:25.998 --> 00:41:27.289 It's, it's about friendship. 00:41:27.289 --> 00:41:29.318 I mean, that's the glue that holds it together. 00:41:30.009 --> 00:41:32.789 Uh, you know, the, the his- the history is, is real. 00:41:32.818 --> 00:41:34.009 The names have been changed. 00:41:34.478 --> 00:41:44.021 But the history, history is real, but the history would be, just kind of dry sawdust without the, the relationships, and these are the most important things, you know? 00:41:44.757 --> 00:41:52.248 And hey, like I, I will tell you, like I didn't know about the Kerner report, which then I immediately downloaded because, you know, that's which comes up and I thought, all right. 00:41:52.277 --> 00:41:55.907 Again, something I love about books is when they teach you something else that you had no idea about. 00:41:55.998 --> 00:42:04.148 I did wanna ask just the structural question of did you always know that you were gonna break this into two parts or was that something that revealed itself to you as you went in? 00:42:04.427 --> 00:42:06.916 Um, that, you know, that revealed itself. 00:42:06.936 --> 00:42:15.306 Well, it, it had to have at least two different points of view because we had, uh, Anthony, AKA Sirius, and George Washington Johnson from the beginning. 00:42:15.306 --> 00:42:40.103 But, The book has taken on a few different forms, and at one point it covered many, many years, maybe 400 years, because it had a couple episodes set during slavery, and we gradually discover that Anthony and, George Washington Johnson share the same family line, if you go back far enough. 00:42:40.704 --> 00:42:40.713 Hmm. 00:42:41.244 --> 00:42:47.884 Um, and they, and then they're the ones who end up personally having the violent confrontation in that form of the book. 00:42:48.614 --> 00:43:15.264 As, as those elements kind of faded away and the book came into itself, the, the structure emerged as, as a necessity because it became apparent that what the book needed in order to, um, I wanna say, like, fully be itself and to achieve its aims was a, a first-person narrator. 00:43:16.204 --> 00:43:39.697 And we needed the first-person narrator because when I was writing in third person, that consciousness was not able to as fully and richly process everything, and it also required a lot more Like, just, just technically, you know, in writing a novel there's inspiration, but there are a lot of just formal, just, like, formal decisions you have to make. 00:43:40.077 --> 00:43:51.956 And so what was happening with the third person is that the, using

the third person to hold the various elements together and drive the story forward was actually a lot more laborious. 00:43:53.237 --> 00:43:56.887 Using the, the first person was, was more natural. 00:43:56.956 --> 00:44:01.570 It ended up falling into this retrospective voice that coheres. 00:44:02.173 --> 00:44:06.731 And so, this, this then meant that you have to have the two different sections. 00:44:06.766 --> 00:44:18.277 And I did try to though, and I mention this in the book, it feels important to note, I guess, or probably definitely, that the part of the first half that is not real is only 15 pages. 00:44:18.367 --> 00:44:22.510 It's only that very last part, it's called, season finale part one and part two. 00:44:23.070 --> 00:44:24.240 It's only that section. 00:44:24.271 --> 00:44:25.440 It's only that section. 00:44:25.460 --> 00:44:40.364 And when George Washington enters, he's just picking up basically a month after and so he's just basically saying,"Okay, we didn't have that particular happy ending that you just read that was 15 pages." That's, that's kind of all. 00:44:41.034 --> 00:44:41.914 Was that a spoiler? 00:44:41.945 --> 00:44:42.994 Was that a spoiler? 00:44:43.255 --> 00:44:44.385 I don't think it's a spoiler. 00:44:44.385 --> 00:44:45.264 I don't think we're gonna call it... 00:44:45.275 --> 00:44:46.315 No, because you know what? 00:44:46.375 --> 00:44:47.994 To me, it's not far enough into it. 00:44:48.425 --> 00:44:50.364 I mean, it, it, it, it really isn't. 00:44:50.414 --> 00:45:06.244 I'll tell you what was a spoiler for me, is I got into the book and I was like,"Okay, it's, it's..." I looked at the back and I was like,"Wow, it's only like 450 or 405 pages." And then when it split halfway, I was like,"No, this is 600 and some pages long." 00:45:07.588 --> 00:45:08.119 Yeah. 00:45:08.144 --> 00:45:09.054 a spoiler for me. 00:45:09.295 --> 00:45:09.914 I was like,"Okay. 00:45:09.914 --> 00:45:14.155 Wow, we're in it." And then I was like,"Okay, well this makes sense now." This has been delightful. 00:45:14.204 --> 00:45:15.175 I, uh... 00:45:15.536 --> 00:45:16.266 Absolutely 00:45:16.315 --> 00:45:24.719 And I'm so glad to have, this larger conversation, which I could have kept going with but I appreciate your willingness and your openness. 00:45:24.778 --> 00:45:27.898 Because I do find that it's, especially with a book like this, it's important. 00:45:27.898 --> 00:45:28.478 And I... 00:45:28.509 --> 00:45:31.938 And, uh, I've just really appreciated having the conversation with you 00:45:32.608 --> 00:45:37.918 No, I, I, I did as well, and I appreciate you for... 00:45:38.128 --> 00:45:41.128 'Cause I just felt like you were present in a, in a very full way. 00:45:41.128 --> 00:45:42.869 I, I appreciate that lot- a lot. 00:45:42.869 --> 00:45:53.088 You know, often, during these, these conversations there's a sense that we might touch on certain unpleasant things, but we're kind of leaving the world behind. 00:45:53.719 --> 00:46:01.625 And the book is obviously, if this makes sense, it's not only informed by the world, it's kind of pushing against it, right? 00:46:01.644 --> 00:46:04.445 Hence the structure, the direct address and everything. 00:46:04.445 --> 00:46:14.465 So I f- I found it refreshing to have the larger conversation because that's really what the book's trying to do as you're reading it. 00:46:14.635 --> 00:46:16.014 Like, yeah 00:46:16.873 --> 00:46:17.873 Yeah, completely. 00:46:18.422 --> 00:46:21.822 Well, to everyone listening, please go out and get the book. 00:46:21.833 --> 00:46:24.902 Buy independent if you are able to buy independent. 00:46:25.302 --> 00:46:28.672 But it's thoughtful, it's challenging, it's funny. 00:46:29.043 --> 00:46:31.322 And again, I so appreciate you being here today. 00:46:31.333 --> 00:46:33.362 And, um, and good luck with it. 00:46:33.413 --> 00:46:34.572 Well, thank you so much. 00:46:34.623 --> 00:46:35.983 And again, I enjoyed it very much 00:46:36.112 --> 00:46:36.639 Thank you, T. 00:46:36.641 --> 00:46:37.398 Geronimo. 00:46:37.445 --> 00:46:45.052 If you've enjoyed today's episode or other episodes of Behind the Stack, please consider liking and subscribing so that you never miss an episode. 00:46:45.509 --> 00:46:51.760 Also, what would be really helpful to me is if you could go to your podcast platform of choice and give the show five stars. 00:46:52.056 --> 00:46:56.282 And if you have the time, what would be really incredible is to give it a review. 00:46:56.557 --> 00:47:05.259 All of these things are incredibly helpful to bring new listeners into the podcast so I can continue to bring you conversations like this one. 00:47:05.653 --> 00:47:14.706 I'll be back next week with another episode, and in the meantime, You can always find me on Instagram, YouTube, or Substack at Brett's Book Stack. 00:47:14.746 --> 00:47:16.914 And as always, thank you for listening