Mary Morris, ALL THE WAY TO THE TIGERS
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[1:22]Mary Morris is most recently the author of Travel Memoir all the way to the Tigers.
[1:28]She is such a accomplished author and has written three story collections for Travel
[1:33]Memoirs, including a memoir called Nothing to Declare, Memoirs of a Woman Traveling
[1:38]Alone.
[1:39]She's also written five novels, including The Night Sky, The Waiting Room, House
[1:42]Arrest, Gateway to the Moon and the Jazz Palace, and she won the Rome Prize in Literature
[1:47]from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
[1:50]She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and teaches writing at Sarah
[1:53]Lawrence.
[1:54]Thank you Mary.
[1:55]Thanks for coming on.
[1:56]This is such a pleasure.
[1:58]You said in your book, you said people think that being a writer is a lonely job, but
[2:02]I am rarely lonely when I'm writing.
[2:03]It is only in the morning when I first wake up and once the sun goes down, that my demons
[2:08]revive.
[2:09]Can you talk to me a little about the demons?
[2:11]Well, you know what, I'm not sure I really understand them exactly, but I have struggled
[2:16]with depression over my whole life and also it's an interesting thing about being left-handed.
[2:20]I'm many, there's that much higher percentage of depression and left-handed people.
[2:25]And I think that work has always gotten my adrenaline going and I've always feel fulfilled
[2:30]when I'm working and I sort of in some ways don't know what to do with myself so much
[2:35]once the sun goes down.
[2:37]I don't really like Sundays and I don't really like the night very much.
[2:41]The mornings, I don't know, I mean, but I don't really know what the demons are to be
[2:45]honest with you.
[2:46]I suppose it's about being lonely and feeling alone.
[2:49]I mean, I grew up, I mean, I don't think there's much hidden in this particular book.
[2:54]I mean, I grew up in a pretty dysfunctional family and, you know, I found for me getting
[3:00]out, getting away, getting up, and moving with the antidote to the feelings I had in
[3:07]my own family home.
[3:08]One of the things I love, I almost always had a dog.
[3:11]I love to take a long walk.
[3:13]What really gets me going every day.
[3:15]That's a good habit to get into.
[3:18]Yeah.
[3:20]You wrote this great line about your mom that I feel like I feel like this describes an
[3:26]entire personality with this one scene when you were at your father's memorial service
[3:31]and your mother complained first that the service that you had planned was taking too long.
[3:34]And then you wrote, over lunch, she turned to me and asked, what's wrong, Mary?
[3:38]You look tired.
[3:39]I mean, my mother, you know, again, you asked me earlier, is there anything that I, you
[3:47]know, haven't been able to write about?
[3:49]And I think this is the book where I've really been able to be the most honest about my
[3:53]parents.
[3:55]And my mom, she just didn't really have the empathy thing.
[4:00]She didn't get it.
[4:02]She never grieved.
[4:03]The only person she ever grieved for was JFK.
[4:07]When JFK was assassinated, she cried and cried and cried.
[4:10]But you know, I think it's in the book.
[4:14]You know, when our dog, when our family dog was dying, she called a cab and she sent it
[4:18]to the vet in a cab alone.
[4:21]She didn't get it.
[4:22]So I don't know, I suppose it's with her narcissism.
[4:26]But she just couldn't understand that what I was feeling and why I looked tired at my
[4:31]father's funeral was I was grieving.
[4:35]So that's a demon, I suppose.
[4:36]Yeah.
[4:37]We'll just keep wrapping him up through this interview and we'll have you all sorted out
[4:40]by the end.
[4:41]Right.
[4:43]But you've not written five and I'll come back to this book, but you've written five
[4:47]novels and four travel memoirs and three story collections.
[4:52]I feel like this is a dream for so many aspiring authors to be able to keep producing
[4:57]content like this throughout your life really and to keep reinventing what you want to
[5:03]say and who you want to be and all that and all of that like how do you do that?
[5:07]How do you keep finding new, exciting challenges in life and then also to write about?
[5:13]You know, despite what we said about demons, I have always felt incredibly excited about
[5:19]life and very optimistic about the world, although at the present moment, it's hard
[5:26]that I feel I'm just everything is a curiosity man.
[5:30]I have very much a child's mind.
[5:32]I'm interested in everything.
[5:34]There's always stories out there.
[5:39]There are always things that grab my interest, you know, of course there are novels and
[5:44]there are things like that.
[5:45]But I keep copious journals.
[5:47]I've kept journals since I was 13 and, you know, my ideas are always in the journals.
[5:54]And so many of the books I've written in the travel book, like the first one I wrote
[5:57]nothing to declare memoirs of old woman traveling alone, I took the trip in 1978, but
[6:03]I didn't write the book until 1986, but everything was in the journals.
[6:07]So a lot of what I do in my process is I just write things down as they're happening
[6:11]around me and then I'll go back and look at them and I'll just sort of, again, that's
[6:17]the kind of listen and silent, like I'll go back and see what I said five years ago or
[6:23]even 10 years ago and find the gems in there that I want to keep, you know.
[6:30]So it's just always been part of my process and, you know, one of the things I always
[6:35]say to young writers is, to me a writer is someone who writes.
[6:40]It's pretty straightforward.
[6:41]And if you have a passion for it and you want to do it, you do it.
[6:45]And I love it.
[6:46]I love it when I'm writing.
[6:48]I'm never happier, I think, than when I'm actually writing.
[6:51]I also paint and I love to paint.
[6:53]I love doing those activities.
[6:55]You know, I'm not so good in front of a football game, you know what I mean?
[7:00]I don't know, you know, I've never, I've never had a shortage of ideas, never.
[7:04]I feel like after reading all the way to the Tigers, though, I would like to introduce you
[7:08]to my travel agent because I think that you can find some better accommodations where
[7:14]when you're taking these trips, when you were like freezing cold and there was no heat
[7:19]and no hot water and you're like in the middle of India, I mean, this is like really roughing
[7:25]it.
[7:26]Well, you know, it's just, I mean, yes and what, I don't know what, yes and no.
[7:30]I mean, a lot of that about, I mean, India is India.
[7:34]And in fact, where I was staying, particularly in pinch, was a lovely resort area.
[7:42]But yeah, the hot water and the cold water were switched and I was incredibly sick and
[7:47]for days, I didn't take a shower because I thought I only had cold water.
[7:53]And the cold was just freezing cold.
[7:55]So I think the worst moment for me was the train ride back to Mumbai because there I was
[8:01]really sick and it was really cold that I had asked my travel agent for a train ride.
[8:05]I wanted that and she said, you sure and I said, yeah, you know, get me a sleeping
[8:11]compartment and it was nightmare.
[8:13]So part of it is me, not, you know, I'm also not a very good planner.
[8:20]So a lot of what I'll do is I'll say, okay, I'm going to go do this, but I don't, I don't
[8:25]have an itinerary really.
[8:26]I mean, I did for this trip, you know, I had a driver and I had a bit of an itinerary,
[8:31]but just a lot of stuff you can't control.
[8:34]But I'm not, I'm not a good, you know, I want to, I actually like to do more than anything
[8:40]in terms of traveling and I'm fortunate to be married to someone who likes to share this
[8:44]with me is we've done a lot of house exchanges.
[8:47]So we've swapped our house in Brooklyn for places, you know, all over really.
[8:55]I like to go and plant myself down somewhere and go to the markets and to know the people
[9:01]and I speak several languages and just immerse myself in a place rather than, you know,
[9:07]I feel more like a traveler than a tourist.
[9:09]I'm not a very good tourist, but I probably could have had better accommodations.
[9:13]You're right.
[9:14]I was just kind of, I was kind of joking about it, but I know, I know, I know, I know, right.
[9:17]But I could sense your frustration in the book when your tour guide wouldn't let you
[9:22]out of the car to go wander around and you kept asking to go for a walk and they were
[9:27]like, no, no, no, we have to take you further away and I felt like you were just about
[9:30]to explode and frustration at that time, I could really feel it through your, through
[9:34]your words.
[9:35]Well, you know, when we were in the actual tiger reserve, I understood that they didn't
[9:39]want me to take a walk and I actually, I, I looked back firmly at the moment where
[9:42]I said, can I take a walk because it was a moment in the, in the reserve where there
[9:47]were creatures everywhere, you know, water buffalo and all kinds of birds and it was this
[9:52]beautiful wild boar, it's this beautiful bucolic setting and obviously if all these
[9:56]animals are out there wasn't a tiger nearby, I mean, I knew, I
[10:00]knew that. I learned that on my trip. So I thought, well, maybe they let me take a walk,
[10:05]but of course they wouldn't. But the real frustration was when I wanted to visit some of the
[10:09]villages and we weren't in the Tiger Reserve anymore. And I was like, I just want to walk,
[10:13]you know. And so that was frustrating to me. I felt very cooped up. I'm not a good person to
[10:19]coop up. I don't like to be confined. I always have to have an aisle seat. And, you know, I just,
[10:24]I don't, I don't didn't like the feeling that I couldn't get out and walk. I haven't been on
[10:28]safari in Africa, but people tell me that it's one of the constraints that people feel in Africa,
[10:35]which is they really don't let you get out and walk. And speaking of walking, the big part of
[10:39]the book was your ankle injury and how you recovered from it and how after a freak ice skating
[10:46]accident happened, you ended up having to have a massive surgery and having a second opinion. And
[10:52]someone said you were going to need ankle reconstruction and you're coming to terms with sort of your
[10:57]limited mobility, how did not being able to function the way that you used to be able to affect
[11:03]you and your mood and all the rest. And how did it inspire you to want to go chase the tigers?
[11:08]Well, I mean, that's just such a good, good question. And again, it's a little bit like the
[11:12]demons because I must say that part of me doesn't entirely understand it. I just do better in motion.
[11:18]I like to be in motion. I like to joke that the subway is my stair master that I like to be
[11:25]going somewhere. And you know, having this accident and you know, it's in the book where my doctor
[11:32]says to me, you know, when I said to him after three months, he said, okay, your bones heal, so you're
[11:38]good to go. And I'd actually brought walking shoes with me that day and I couldn't take two steps
[11:42]because the pain was absolutely appreciating. And two weeks later, I went back to him and I said,
[11:47]when am I going to be normal? And he said, well, what do you mean by normal? And I've just
[11:51]started weeping because I realized that I might never be, you know, normal again. And that was when
[11:57]he told me that, you know, a race horse has put down for a lesser injury than the one you I had.
[12:02]My bone was shattered. He said it was the worst ankle injury that he had ever had to deal with.
[12:08]And he was a trauma surgeon. So it was very, very difficult. And it was very psychologically
[12:15]difficult. And I think there was just that moment when I was reading Dustin Venice, which wasn't
[12:20]'t going to cheer me up. But when I got to the sentence about he would go on a journey, not far,
[12:25]not all the way to the Tigers. And I was laid up. It was Easter Sunday. I was stuck at home.
[12:30]Larry worked on Sundays. So I was all alone. Our daughter was under junior abroad. And I just
[12:36]read that sentence over and over again. And I thought, when I walk and I will walk again,
[12:41]I'm going to go to the Tigers. I'm just going to go. I'm going to figure it out. So, you know,
[12:47]it just, I vote. I'm pretty determined. I guess. I'm pretty determined. Yeah.
[12:53]Unstoppable. How has this whole quarantine then affected you as someone who needs to be in
[12:59]constant motion? And now it's like a glorified being trapped in a moving car like at home,
[13:05]essentially. How has that been? Right. Well, you know, I think, you know, I think my injury was kind
[13:13]of my learning experience for this moment. And first of all, I do walk every morning. We're in a
[13:20]remote place right now. So there's, I see nobody. And so walking here is very easy. In the city,
[13:26]we live in Brooklyn. When I'm in the city, I walk the dog like at about six in the morning. So I,
[13:31]I do get out like that. But one of the things I learned from the previous, from my last time I
[13:37]was housebound, was you have to be productive. And you have to find ways that are productive,
[13:43]that are meaningful, not only to yourself, but also to other people. So for example, I do things
[13:48]for myself every day that I want to, you know, self care and all that and my writing. But I also
[13:54]make a little list every day of who do I want to reach out to? Who might want to hear from me? Who
[14:00]could I check in on? You know, and just try to give back also and be aware of other people,
[14:05]and what other people are going through. So I found I'm actually extremely busy and productive
[14:12]at this time. And I think if I, if I knew some of the lessons that I've learned in the first
[14:19]being housebound with my accident, I wish I had known some of it now. I wish I had been able to
[14:26]be more productive. I remember when I was laid up and I was really feeling sorry for myself.
[14:31]And a friend came over and she said, well, be grateful you didn't break your wrist.
[14:37]And that really stayed with me because I thought, you know, I wouldn't be able to write
[14:40]if I broke my wrist. So, you know, we have to be grateful for what we have. We have to assume that
[14:48]this isn't going to go on forever. You know, one of the things they say about depression is it's
[14:52]a hole you fall into and you think it's never going to end. And that's what makes it so terrible for
[14:57]people. You know, like a child thinks they've been left alone in a room and the mother's never
[15:02]going to come back. And you just have to, I don't know. I guess, I guess one of the things is, first of all,
[15:08]I'm excited about this book. I have a lot of work to do. We're expecting our first grandchild.
[15:13]Oh. And so that's quite exciting. And in fact, this remote cabin where we are is just down the
[15:18]road from our daughter, which is why we rented it. And I don't know. So, you know, I'm,
[15:24]I feel very busy and very enlightened. And I'm not really minding it that much. I missed my
[15:30]friend. You know, I miss seeing people. But, you know, I do things with them and things like that.
[15:37]So, you know, it's okay. That's great. I think, I think staying busy in service to others,
[15:43]I agree is sort of the key to the whole thing. And PS, my wrist has been killing me for the
[15:47]last two days. And I was, and like, if you want, I mean, I'm sure your ankle injury was like
[15:53]her effect. But I, yeah, this is not, this is no fun. And I'm like, how, what am I going to do
[15:58]if I can't respond to my like hundreds of emails every day? It's like let alone like write something.
[16:03]So anyway, whatever. I'll be totally fine. Yes. It's right. It's very scary. If it's a part of your body
[16:09]that you really need. And yes, it was hard to be laid up. But I did learn some lessons from that.
[16:17]And they've been very helpful to me in this period. And being productive, I think, is really
[16:22]important for people. Whatever form that takes. Are you working on it? Are you working on a new
[16:27]book now? Yes, I actually, I published a novel a couple years ago called Gateway to the Moon.
[16:33]And I'm sort of doing a kind of a sequel to it. I'm sort of, Gateway to the Moon is about the
[16:39]secret Jews of New Mexico. These are Jews who fled to New Mexico during the time of this banishing
[16:44]acquisition. And we lived in New Mexico a number of years ago. And we have babysitter who believed
[16:52]he was descended from there. He believed he was descended from these people. And I got interested
[16:59]in him and in his world. And I wrote Gateway to the Moon kind of based on his story. And
[17:06]after I finished Gateway to the Moon through a story that's way too complicated to go into,
[17:10]I found myself in contact with Jamaican Jews who also fled during the Inquisition. And their story
[17:17]is also fascinating. And I've never considered myself to be a Jewish writer per se. But these,
[17:23]I'm quite interested in buried histories and hidden histories and people who don't really know
[17:27]what their history is. And so I've really gotten interested in that whole world. And just as an aside,
[17:36]the camera we've rented is actually owned by a descendant of Jewish pirates.
[17:44]Wow. Who knew? Which is a whole. Right. Who knew? So there's a whole, there's a book called
[17:50]Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean that I highly recommend. The new novel is kind of based on it. And
[17:55]it'll be published in, I think, 2022 by enough. Yeah. Do you have any final advice to aspiring
[18:03]authors? Well, you know, I was sort of thinking about that, that you would ask me that. And I think
[18:10]the first piece of advice I have is if you, if you want to write, you write, you know, you just keep
[18:17]writing. Don't quit your day job. But if you feel, you know, if you feel passionately about it,
[18:22]you should write. And I think it's really helpful to find like-minded people. I mean, I have maybe
[18:29]about five friends that I will share my work with relatively often. Not not a workshop way. But,
[18:36]you know, I can always call certain friends and say, hey, would you take a look at this? Or what do you
[18:41]think? I think it's important to listen to the stories inside of you and write them. And then when
[18:47]at the time it's right, you know, share them with people. But just keep doing it. I think that's
[18:54]my biggest piece of advice is just keep at it. There are no guarantees. There's no one that can say,
[19:00]you know, don't think about what's going to happen to the work. Think about if you're taking pleasure
[19:05]and enjoying the process of doing it. You know, are you enjoying it and enjoying it to do it?
[19:12]Love it. That's great advice. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Mary. Thanks for coming on.
[19:18]Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure. Thank you. Sorry for our technical snafers, but I'm glad
[19:24]it all worked out. I'm glad it worked out. I'd love to be talking to you. You too. Thank you. Bye-bye.
[19:29]Okay, you take care. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Thanks for listening to momstone. Have time to read books.
[19:35]Please don't forget, subscribe, rate, and review this on iTunes. Tell your friends about it.
[19:41]Spread the word. Thanks so much for listening. I really appreciate it. Thanks so much to page one
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[19:50]at page one books dot com. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at the texture sound for the sound editing.
[19:55]And thank you to Morningmoon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.
[20:00]Thanks for listening. You can always email me at zibi at zibiowans.com