Jeanine Cummins, AMERICAN DIRT: A NOVEL
[0:01]Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast, Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
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[0:34]Okay, now back to this amazing podcast.
[0:38]Today's episode is the recording of my recent event with the Temple Immanuel Striker Center,
[0:43]in which I interviewed Janine Cummins, author of American Dirt.
[0:47]As you may know, if you've been following my podcast and listening along for, I don't know,
[0:51]a year or so, or more, it's been three years now.
[0:55]I interviewed Janine over the summer with my book club for the first time,
[0:59]and that was really interesting, and I got to know her thoughts and feelings a little more than,
[1:04]but now that it's been over a year since the whole controversy surrounding American Dirt happened,
[1:09]I got a chance to really dig deep and talk to Janine about not just the controversy,
[1:14]but about her writing and all the great things that people should have been asking her from the beginning,
[1:19]but instead were completely blindsided and distracted by the controversy surrounding the book.
[1:26]So this is a chance to hear from Janine herself what it was like to having death threats and all
[1:32]the rest when her book came out because of all the drama, how she handled it, what it was like
[1:37]writing American Dirt to begin with, what she's working on now, how she feels, and honestly,
[1:41]I just thought this was amazing and interesting, and I really thought that you all should hear it,
[1:46]so here it is. And by the way, in terms of bio, Janine is the author of four books,
[1:51]the best-selling memoir, A Rippin' Heaven and The Novels, The Outside Boy, The Crooked Branch,
[1:55]and of course American Dirt, which was a bestseller and Oprah's book pick. She lives in New York
[2:01]with her husband and two children. Hi, Janine. Hi, Zippy. How are you? I'm good. It's so great to see you.
[2:07]I wish we could do this in person, but this is the next best thing, right? Me too. It would be nice
[2:12]to do anything in person. Yeah, maybe next year. Who knows? I'm so distracted by the beautiful
[2:23]bookshelf behind you and the way that it's color coordinated. I did that on Saturday morning,
[2:27]that I have to say. Yes, I need to change my bookshelf. I actually, I know I told you this,
[2:33]I'm just getting over COVID and I was in bed for nine straight days. And on the 10th morning,
[2:38]I woke up and I was like, oh my gosh, I have energy again. And I came in here and I took
[2:42]every book off of every shelf and was like, I'm making a new bookshelf. So that was my first
[2:47]of energy. Yeah, you could spend each year of your time anyway. Yes, anyway. Well, I love books
[2:53]and I particularly have loved your book, American Dirt, which I'm sure everybody on this Zoom
[2:59]has heard of. And hopefully by this point has read. And if they haven't already, now is the time
[3:03]to read this book. Yes, there has been a lot of controversy around it. However, it is one of
[3:09]the best books I've ever read. And I say this to anybody who ever asks. So congratulations on writing,
[3:17]what has become one of the greatest masterpieces of this time? And I don't say this to
[3:24]butter you up. I actually really, really mean it. It's amazing. So you're gradually
[3:30]being so kind. It's, you know, it was a labor of love five years in the making. And it's really
[3:37]gratifying to know that despite all the controversy readers like you have responded so positively
[3:43]to the book that it really makes a big difference. It feels like the antidote in a lot of ways to
[3:48]the difficulty of the last year. So I'm grateful. So let's talk about the book itself for a little
[3:55]bit because the book itself is fantastic, as I said, but also we've been so many different themes,
[4:02]right? We have the theme of motherhood because Lydia and for those of you who aren't following,
[4:08]well, I'm assuming most people have read it, but Lydia and Luca have to try to get out of Mexico
[4:14]and after a horrific opening scene, which is one for the ages. And a lot of it has to do with
[4:21]the fierce love that a mother has for her son and what she'll do to protect her son. And then,
[4:26]of course, there are layers and layers of themes on top of that. But let's start with like the
[4:31]motherhood piece and you're writing that relationship. Tell me a little bit about how you
[4:36]structured their relationship and what tools you use to really show this love and what a mother
[4:43]wouldn't do. Yeah. Well, I love that that's the first thing that we talk about because,
[4:49]you know, that is the engine of the book for me. And in fact, I think it's probably the
[4:53]engine of most of my writing. Certainly, I think all my novels are about the bonds between parents
[5:01]and their children. And I, you know, I think that one thing about this novel, it's funny
[5:11]given everything that happened. But I never thought of this as a Mexican story. You know,
[5:16]I wrote two failed drafts of this novel, neither of which was set in Mexico before I wrote this one.
[5:22]And it's true that most of the characters in this book are Mexican and Central American. But
[5:27]kind of the whole point of the novel for me is that in fact, they could be anyone. They could be
[5:33]from Syria or Afghanistan or, you know, Houston, Texas at this point. It's what would you do
[5:40]if you're a mother and you live in a place that begins to collapse around you to what
[5:45]links would you go to save your child? And I would argue that the answer to that question crosses
[5:51]every cultural boundary there is, you know, the answer is anything you would do anything.
[5:56]And, you know, this is one of the few absolutely universal truths, I think of humanity is that
[6:03]we do whatever it takes to save our children. And, you know, when I was writing this book,
[6:09]I was grieving for my father. And I think that a lot of that grief and the trauma of losing
[6:15]him in the way that I did is evident in the book. It's evident to me reading it. And I think,
[6:22]you know, very often when I have a trauma in my life, it makes its way into the pages. And that
[6:28]is one way that I have of, you know, it's like therapy. It's like free therapy writing a novel.
[6:34]It's also, you know, what I tell my children is that if you can take your deepest pain,
[6:40]your deepest wound in the world and embrace it and live in it, sink into it and get to know it
[6:50]and do whatever you can do with it until you find a way to make it into something beautiful.
[6:56]I think that is the greatest, you know, endeavor that we can hope for as human being. So as a writer,
[7:03]that's always what I want to do is to take that kind of pain or trauma and find a way to use it
[7:10]in the story and a way that that makes the story more meaningful. And you started with a memoir
[7:15]or that was one of your first works is when you recounted the horrific events that
[7:20]be felt, said a word, be felt that had be fallen, that happened to your family,
[7:25]your cousins who were, I mean, it can barely even say raped and murdered, your brother narrowly escapes,
[7:32]how did you cope with that whole situation? I know you made it into a memoir,
[7:37]but when you start writing from a place like that, you can't just, you know, move on to,
[7:42]like, romance. Do you know what I mean? Like, you're, you know, so tell me a little bit about
[7:48]starting there and how that led you to the kind of writing you're doing now in fiction.
[7:52]Yeah. So the incident that happened with my family, it happened when I was 16 years old.
[7:59]And, you know, we were, you kind of, you did the thumbnail version of it there. I mean, that's
[8:04]everything people need to know. We were on vacation visiting family and my brother and cousins went
[8:10]out one night and they were attacked by four strangers and the two girls never made at home.
[8:15]You know, when you're 16 and that happens to your family, it was the single, most formative
[8:22]experience of my life. And so it's impossible for me to know how I would be different as a writer
[8:30]or a person, as a person, you know, if that hadn't happened. But to be sure, I can draw bright
[8:36]lines from that experience to American dirt. You know, I've always been someone who's interested in
[8:46]in writing stories from the less represented point of view. So, you know, I feel like,
[8:52]if you look at true crime, for example, most of those stories are focused on the murderers,
[8:59]on the perpetrators of violence. And it's for good reason, you know, that's where the story is.
[9:03]The victims having been murdered are no longer around to tell their story. So the action is
[9:11]like hunting down and finding the murderer and figuring out what makes that person tick
[9:16]and all of that stuff. It's always been less interesting to me. You know, I think because of that
[9:23]experience in my early life that I have always felt as sort of silent outrage. Like, why are
[9:30]we focusing on the violent perpetrators? Why aren't we telling these stories from the points of
[9:36]view of the people who have suffered and endured? And so that was absolutely my driving force
[9:43]behind writing, a rip and heaven, which was the memoir. And I think it has trickled into every
[9:49]book I've written since and to be sure it's a very strong theme in American dirt. You know,
[9:53]if you turn on Netflix, you're going to find two dozen different iterations of stories about
[9:59]violent men.
[10:00]In Mexico, it's always a man with a gun at the center of that story, whether he is law enforcement or a narco trafficante almost doesn't matter because he's a guy with a gun who shoots people.
[10:12]And you know, there are very few stories about the women and children on the flip side of that violence.
[10:20]So I feel like this has always sort of been my calling card as a writer is to follow that less well represented story.
[10:31]Do you ever feel like maybe I think solidad and Rebecca on in this book are your cousins sort of reimagined in a way that this is them trying to escape the situation that they weren't able to in real life.
[10:47]Yeah, I mean, it's not something I was cognizant of in my own psychology when I was writing it, but several people have asked me that question since and it seems inescapably true at this point, I think so.
[11:00]I think that the birth of those two characters in my mind probably came from that latent place of grieving for those beautiful girls.
[11:09]If I read just like two paragraphs about them.
[11:12]Yeah, mine.
[11:13]This will be short.
[11:14]And this is when they're on libestia or the best year or whatever when they're trying to escape and they have met this whole band of characters along the way.
[11:22]And well, I'll just read it.
[11:24]What happened, silly dot asks, there's still a lot of yelling coming from the car to ahead of theirs and a couple of voices begin to emerge from the fray later than the others.
[11:33]And then he stands up on the train and his companions grab him and pull him back down.
[11:38]And then a moment later, the scene repeats itself.
[11:40]He seems determined to jump off.
[11:42]And now the story is traveling back along the train until it gets to the cluster of men seated in front of the sisters.
[11:47]One young man turns to share it.
[11:49]His brother fell off.
[11:50]Sully died gasps and crosses herself.
[11:52]Dios Mio, how she asks.
[11:54]The man points back at the tunnel.
[11:55]They just passed through.
[11:56]Didn't see the tunnel was sitting up too tall on his knees and bang.
[11:59]He sat on the top of the tunnel and got knocked right off.
[12:02]Sully died's face is a twist of horrified compassion.
[12:05]She leans past the young man because she can see now beyond him that the whaling brother is back on his feet a third time.
[12:11]The words fly out of her mouth by instinct.
[12:13]Her hand darts toward him.
[12:14]Stop him.
[12:15]She screams, grab him.
[12:16]But it's too late.
[12:17]The man has jumped.
[12:18]He's a distorted silhouette of arched arms and legs against the blurry yellow of the late morning sky.
[12:23]His shadow makes the shape of grief as he hurdles toward the earth.
[12:27]Too far.
[12:28]The early dad's voice is still working independently of her body.
[12:31]Oh my god.
[12:32]Oh my god.
[12:33]Their train car is already passing where the jumper has landed.
[12:35]His body rolls down the steep embankment and away.
[12:37]Luca counts his arms and legs.
[12:39]One, two, three, four.
[12:41]He counts them again to make sure.
[12:42]He still has all four, but they don't seem to be working.
[12:45]His body comes to a stop in a thicket of weeds and the train storms on without him without his brother.
[12:50]Sully died his almost catatonic after watching the man jump as if the incident loosened
[12:55]up.
[12:58]She's a gradual scab of her own suffering.
[13:00]She lies down again and Rebecca pulls her sister's head into her lap.
[13:04]She strokes the lydod's long black hair back away from her forehead and quietly
[13:08]sings a song in a language Lydia has never heard before.
[13:11]Sully died stays there unblinking.
[13:12]But soon her expressions softens her dark eyebrows turn slack and her lids
[13:14]flutter closed.
[13:15]She drifts into some state.
[13:16]I can't just sleep.
[13:17]Oh, you're so good.
[13:19]I mean, first of all, the immediacy of that scene.
[13:22]I can't challenge anyone to feel like they were not just sitting up there.
[13:26]And that fear and that.
[13:28]Oh my gosh, just all the emotion.
[13:30]So when you're writing a scene like this, tell me about it.
[13:33]Do you sit there and like sort of imagine it visually?
[13:36]Do you like how do you recreate a scene like this?
[13:39]Tell me your, what are your tricks?
[13:41]Oh, that's a great question.
[13:43]And it's, I guess it's probably just saying like, oh, it's magic.
[13:47]And I can't describe it is probably not helpful.
[13:50]But there is something that happens.
[13:53]I think when I'm writing where it, the story is moving a bit beyond me.
[13:57]And I'm not always self aware in the moment of how it's happening or how I'm writing.
[14:04]I think for me, a very, very significant part of the process is research.
[14:09]And this is true even when I'm writing a book that's set, you know, in this room.
[14:15]I need to immerse my imagination in that place.
[14:20]So I need to go there.
[14:22]I have to be, you know, I spent a lot of time doing research in Mexico.
[14:26]I visited migrant shelters and orphanages.
[14:29]And I volunteered at a dese unador.
[14:32]And I spent a lot of time with migrants and listen to their stories.
[14:37]But also I think there's something about being in the place that you're writing about.
[14:43]that is almost impossible to recreate because you have to engage all five senses, I think.
[14:50]So, I mean, you can research like you can watch YouTube videos and whatever, but you won't know what a place smells like unless you go there.
[14:58]So, you know, I think for me that is essential.
[15:03]And even when I've been to a place when I'm then writing the scene, which might be weeks later.
[15:09]I always will go back to the camera role and open those photographs that I took when I was there to try to trigger the sensory memory of being in that in that space.
[15:21]And I think that kind of immersive experiences essential for me as a writer.
[15:27]I know everyone's process is different, but for me that's what it looks like, you know.
[15:32]You should take some of those pictures and like post them up somewhere.
[15:35]Yeah.
[15:36]Like, this is what this is what I was trying to channel.
[15:39]You know, we could let you know how you did.
[15:41]Yeah.
[15:42]Good idea.
[15:43]I have one.
[15:44]Oh, show us.
[15:45]Yeah.
[15:46]You have one tacked up here on my wall.
[15:47]That's this was when I was in Tijuana, there's a sign or, you know, a hand painted thing on the fence on the border wall in Tijuana.
[15:57]Tijuana, that says Tambien de Estelado, I swing.
[16:00]It's on this side too.
[16:02]There are dreams.
[16:03]And to me, that felt so it's, I mean, it was such a shocking and, you know, like a startling reminder of like how proprietary we have become in this country about everything.
[16:16]And in this story, it really felt essential for me to remember that every single day that I was writing.
[16:24]Well, and of course, the migrant experience is something that will a has gotten a lot of attention.
[16:30]But b is something that is close to your heart because as you recounted in the amazing article that was just just came out in your interview that you granted to the London times on the occasion of your UK version coming out.
[16:43]Your own husband is an immigrant from Ireland.
[16:48]And while it doesn't matter where you come from, your point is sort of well, when you live with someone who's like the centerpiece of your life, who at any moment could be ripped away from you and deported.
[17:00]And that's a different, it's a fragile sort of foundation on which to rest your life and love.
[17:07]Tell me a little bit about that feeling and then how you put that in American dirt.
[17:12]You know, it's an objectively terrifying way to live.
[17:16]It's I just no matter what.
[17:18]And I wrote an essay many months ago for one of the Irish newspapers.
[17:24]It was maybe the Irish times or the examiner about, you know, the kind of moments when I realized that we were never the undocumented family they were looking for.
[17:35]You know, the privilege of being a native English speaker of having an Irish face and an Irish accent and, you know, his journey was that he flew into JFK and then like waited at baggage carousel three for his luggage, you know, he didn't have to endure any kind of hardship on his journey.
[17:57]And that's not to this country, you know, it was, he was on a visit or visa, which is the same way that I think between 60 and 70% of undocumented Americans come here, they they come, you know, on a visit or visa, they're not making the journey on Labestia from Central America.
[18:13]They're flying in from wherever their country of origin is and they're coming here to visit and then they overstay their visa.
[18:20]The majority of undocumented people in this country get here contrary to popular belief.
[18:25]But, you know, that's that was the story of his journey, but once he got here and he overstayed the visa.
[18:31]He got like a summer job, which then he turned out to be really good at and then he he overstayed in the whole time they were trying to sponsor him.
[18:39]So they were doing the thing where they were attempting to adjust his paperwork to get him the proper visas and it didn't work. They tried for years.
[18:48]And then, you know, maybe two years into that process, he met me and I sunk my hooks into him and, you know, we fell in love and he he waited a long time to propose partly because he was determined to ratify his,
[19:08]status before he he didn't want this idea looming over us that, you know, that he had married me for the green card, which was never a fear.
[19:17]I think for either of us, but, but he just wanted it done before and it just it turned out to be impossible.
[19:26]And I think in the 10 or more years that we were living in that way.
[19:33]And with all the extra fear of, you know, every morning when he leaves the house is, is he going to come home again, you know, and I have a brother who's a firefighter.
[19:43]So that is a fear that is not unfamiliar to me that idea that like, you know, anything could happen to anyone at any time.
[19:52]So, but there isn't it's extra heightened when you're living with someone who's undocumented and then, you know, eventually when we got married, it took an additional.
[20:00]two and a half years to get his green card after we were married, and the whole time you're in that
[20:06]holding pattern, you can't travel. You will call the system to try to get an update on the status
[20:14]and the automated system like Moxio. It's like, thank you for calling. Your status is in under review,
[20:22]please call back in 90 days. And it just does that for three years until one day you walk to the
[20:26]mailbox and there's an envelope in there that you're lucky you didn't toss out with the
[20:30]junk mail and it's like the green card. So it's crazy how opaque and broken our immigration system is,
[20:40]and we lived with that for many years. And you know, he actually even fell out of status briefly
[20:47]just a few years ago when he went to get a citizenship. We applied for the citizenship and it took
[20:52]so long that his green card expired while we were waiting to hear back from about the citizenship.
[20:59]And it was I think another two and a half or three years that we were waiting. And the lawyers advised
[21:04]us during that time not to renew the green card because then the green card would have superseded
[21:10]the citizenship application. So he just became undocumented again. This is 10 years into our marriage
[21:17]two kids, a house and a dog later, you know, and all it takes is like one overzealous police officer
[21:23]to pull him over and he's gone. And it's crazy that how many families are having to navigate that.
[21:32]And then with the additional layer for so many people of racism, institutionalized racism in
[21:41]this country, the hurdles of not being able to speak the language. And all the other problems
[21:48]of potentially not having a safe place to return to if they do get reported. So there's just
[21:54]layer upon layer upon layer of of problems in this system that frankly would be relatively easy
[22:01]to address and fix if we could find the political will in this country to do that.
[22:06]Well, I feel like American dirt put a face by having Lydia and Luca go through this experience,
[22:13]put a real like it was as if a close friend had told me what the journey was like by reading your
[22:20]book. So I felt like I that's the the power of great narrative, right? Great literature is you
[22:26]actually feel like you've experienced some of these things. And then I can read subsequent books,
[22:30]but I feel like your book changed the way I think about the whole immigration experience. I just
[22:37]I read recently, I don't know if you've read yet, Patricia angles, they're called infinite country
[22:41]and they're it's a similar themes, but they're coming from Columbia. And you find yourself
[22:45]at times like reading like well, maybe you should just go back like what are you like it's not
[22:49]so great here, because I don't know. I feel like you have started this dialogue in a very,
[22:54]very important way. Not I mean, obviously it was there, but for so with your 1.5 million
[22:59]copies or whatever is out there, you have opened this dialogue, which now can be addressed and cannot
[23:06]be ignored. I mean, it's always my great it's I think it's probably every writer's great hope,
[23:12]but for me, you know, I grew up reading books like Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry, which blew my mind
[23:18]as a sixth grader. And those were always the kind of books that I wanted to write books that would
[23:25]absolutely do what you just described, which is like make people think differently about something
[23:30]that perhaps their mind wasn't open to before. That's always my greatest hope, so it makes me happy
[23:36]to fit to know that it. Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry was assigned some reading from my school,
[23:43]like our mandatory book. So I literally remember like sitting on a beach reading that like
[23:48]a hundred years ago when I was like sixth grade or whatever, not a hundred, but you know,
[23:52]great book. Absolutely astonishing book. Let's talk just like for two seconds about the fact that
[23:58]this became such a big scandal. And in the London Times piece, you talk about the fact that you
[24:05]stayed at home and your bathroom in eight nachos for months after and a friend had to move in and
[24:10]you know, make sure you were okay because of all the PTSD. Tell me a little about this unexpected
[24:16]backlash when when the book had been, you know, one at auction by who was a great note,
[24:22]it's how do I never know. Right. And was chosen by Oprah and was going to be this whole thing and
[24:27]I'm sure you're just like how could you not have been just riding high on like the imminent success.
[24:32]And then right before you're at the finish line had this complete reversal, which oh my and then
[24:40]and then to have the tour canceled and you know, the rumors of death threats and all this stuff,
[24:45]take us just back to that nacho eating moment for a minute.
[24:50]I tried to stay away from that moment. It was bad. It was really, really painful. And you know,
[24:55]I I am not a victim. I don't ever want to cast myself as a victim in any way, but you know,
[25:01]this moment in our culture where when we disagree with each other instead of saying,
[25:09]please help me understand what we say is your piece of shit and you deserve to die. And then,
[25:15]you know, all of Twitter starts saying that same thing. It's ugly. And it can be incredibly
[25:21]painful to the person who is on the receiving end of it. And it's a different person every third
[25:27]day now at this point. You know, it's it is something we have to figure out how to contend with
[25:32]in this in this moment in our culture. And I don't know what the answer is, you know, but it was
[25:37]really, really bad. It was my husband says it was like launching a cruise ship from the top of the
[25:44]cliff because it was so high. You know, like you are saying it was, I mean, the pre publication
[25:53]praise for this book was like nothing I'd ever seen. And I was in publishing for 10 years.
[25:58]It was insane. It was it was really exciting. And I have to say across an extremely diverse landscape
[26:07]of readership, including lots of Mexican and Latino writers who were saying rhapsodic things about
[26:15]this novel until it all turned on a dime, you know, like the weekend of publication, it all it all
[26:22]turned. And, you know, it was funny because I did expect some pushback way before, you know,
[26:30]and then when it didn't happen, when we sent out 10,000 copies of this galley and got nothing,
[26:35]but glowing reviews for it for many months, I thought we were in the clear. And then, you know,
[26:42]when it all happened just the weekend before publication, it was, it was intense. It was painful.
[26:48]I think every writer is prepared to some degree to have bad reviews and to have people who hate
[26:55]the book fine. I'm cool with that. But there was something new in this moment where it wasn't
[27:03]so much about the book as it was about me. It was about my integrity. It was about my ethnicity,
[27:11]which is bananas, because I happen to be Puerto Rican and Irish, but I don't it's not relevant.
[27:19]I don't understand what that has to do with the novel that I wrote, although I will say that I
[27:24]I probably opened the door to that conversation a little bit by writing the authors note that I wrote.
[27:30]So I think that was problematic, but nobody no, no fiction writer anticipates the kind of hatred
[27:38]that I received. Nobody. I mean, you know, it's not what I signed up for. It's not what I expected.
[27:44]And yes, the tour was canceled because of that hatred. It was canceled because there were threats
[27:49]of violence against me. And, you know, what happened was that the events started to be canceled
[27:55]piecemeal. So we were hearing from bookstores and venues three and four days out that they weren't
[28:03]going to, you know, they didn't they couldn't feel they could guarantee my safety. And so we were canceling
[28:09]events one at a time. And then eventually the publisher said, I think we need to just call it.
[28:15]And I was really resistant at first because I felt like I didn't want to give up. I didn't want
[28:21]to give in. I wanted to say what I wanted to say, you know, and I felt like I could engage. I felt
[28:28]like I could address all of the complaints in a way that because I'm I'm open. I'm willing to
[28:35]to talk and listen and learn. But I there was no, there was no dialogue happening. And it wasn't,
[28:43]you know, ultimately, I think they understood that it just was going to be a none. It wasn't,
[28:50]it was going to be a non-victorious thing. And and that it wasn't worth the physical danger
[28:56]to the to the bookstores, the the employees of the bookstores and the venues and to myself.
[29:02]I wonder what would have happened if the timing had been pushed just a little and this had been
[29:07]during COVID because you wouldn't have had any threats. I mean, it wouldn't have mattered right
[29:12]it with everything virtual. I just wonder what that would have done if that if the conversations
[29:17]could have happened. Right. Because I think part of the book tour being canceled, then you,
[29:22]it was another silencing of sorts. Right. Unless you were going to like call it with like an old
[29:26]school like press conference, like from the movies, like gather it, right. Then you didn't have
[29:32]as much of a venue. I wonder though at this point, like looking back a year later, whatever,
[29:38]would you have done anything differently? I mean, you reference the authors note, but would you
[29:42]you have changed things in the book? Or are you going to change things in any subsequent
[29:47]editions? Or are you just like where do you where is your where's your head where's your head at
[29:51]these things? I don't think that the book is the problem, frankly. I think that I do regret
[29:57]the author's tone. I think it was clumsy and it was my
[30:00]endeavor to try to justify the book that I had written,
[30:05]and to be frank, like I don't owe anyone an explanation.
[30:09]I'm a novelist.
[30:10]I made up a story, and I stand by the book that I wrote.
[30:13]I spent five years writing it.
[30:15]I do think that the conversation about cultural appropriation
[30:21]in particular is an important one,
[30:24]but I think there's a difference.
[30:26]I think we need to learn how to differentiate
[30:28]between what is cultural appropriation,
[30:30]what is just the stealing and hijacking of stories,
[30:34]versus what is someone who is fully engaged
[30:39]in social justice and attempting to wait
[30:41]into a conversation that she feels is really important
[30:44]that she wants to be a part of.
[30:45]Then there were parts of the controversy
[30:47]that I think are completely legitimate.
[30:49]There are tremendous inequities in the publishing industry,
[30:52]and Latino writers have been underrepresented
[30:56]and underpaid for a long time,
[30:57]and specifically Mexican writers.
[31:00]And that is a thing that the publishing industry
[31:03]thanks in part to what happened with American dirt
[31:05]is finally contending with that reality,
[31:08]that they need to do better with representation.
[31:11]And so I think that, I mean, I feel glad
[31:13]that those conversations are finally happening.
[31:17]It was painful to be a catalyst for them,
[31:21]especially as someone who I consider myself Latina.
[31:26]I am part Puerto Rican,
[31:27]and I've always been really proud of my heritage.
[31:31]And so it was weird.
[31:33]It felt really strange to be somehow held up
[31:37]as the poster child for inequity
[31:39]and the publishing industry when I am who I am
[31:44]without trying to pitch and hold myself
[31:46]in a half a sentence.
[31:48]But I did not recognize myself in the outrage online.
[31:53]I am not who I think people wanted to believe that I was.
[31:58]Well, I think there's this crazy assumption
[32:02]that just because someone is a relatively public figure
[32:04]or writes a book or stars in a movie
[32:07]or whatever, that their life is sort of up for grabs
[32:10]for everybody else to paw into and dissect and then judge.
[32:15]And I think people in their haste
[32:17]to make judgments or jump on a bandwagon or whatever,
[32:20]they forget that someone's on the other side of those tweets.
[32:23]I mean, what kind of kindness is that?
[32:25]I mean, you can make your point without threatening the life
[32:27]of somebody who is at their core and artist,
[32:32]right?
[32:32]You're creating a work of art here by creating literature
[32:35]and starting a discourse.
[32:37]And I wrote this at the time when I wrote this piece
[32:40]in defense of genie comments because I was so upset
[32:43]because I had like the special place in my heart for your book.
[32:45]I kept like telling everybody before I came out like,
[32:48]I was like, I couldn't believe what happened.
[32:51]And I was trying to defend a novelist's right
[32:55]to paint a picture and obviously there are many other layers
[32:57]to it, but still, can we not try to write about a culture
[33:01]whether or not we inhabit it?
[33:03]It doesn't mean other people shouldn't write it.
[33:04]I mean, I don't know.
[33:06]But for people like tweeting and tagging people on tweets
[33:09]and all this stuff, you know, this goes back to just
[33:13]why be so mean, I don't know.
[33:15]I guess like, I don't know.
[33:17]I just sometimes I don't understand this sort of hate culture
[33:20]of hatred and cancellation and all of the stuff,
[33:22]but maybe that's off topic.
[33:24]I mean, look, I don't, it's so easy to go into that rabbit hole
[33:29]and we could talk about it for days,
[33:30]but I should just say I've spent an inordinate amount
[33:33]of time thinking about it this year.
[33:35]And just even the phrase cancel culture,
[33:38]I think bothers me.
[33:39]I don't use it because it feels like a cop out on both ends.
[33:44]It's like, it allows people who aren't,
[33:48]who don't want to be engaged with social justice
[33:51]or racial justice.
[33:52]It allows those people the opportunity
[33:55]to be dismissive, right?
[33:56]And say like, oh, it's just cancel culture, it's whatever.
[34:00]But at the same time, it also allows people
[34:02]who are really just engaged in hateful, vitriol.
[34:08]And often, many of these people in a self-serving way,
[34:12]it allows them the opportunity to sort of wrap themselves
[34:16]in the banner of moral outrage,
[34:18]when really like we should just call a spade a spade
[34:21]and there are plenty of folks out there
[34:22]who are just engaged in hatred for hatred's sake.
[34:26]And it has nothing to do with,
[34:28]with racial justice or social justice.
[34:31]So I think it's a little reductive, this whole conversation
[34:35]and it would be great if we could dig into it
[34:37]and figure it out like with a bit more nuance, you know?
[34:42]Okay, well not today.
[34:43]Yeah.
[34:44]So what are you working on now?
[34:47]Well, I have finally started my new book.
[34:50]I mean, really recently, like last Saturday.
[34:53]You know, I have sort of thought of
[34:56]and discarded a dozen ideas over the last year
[35:00]about, you know, all the themes
[35:02]that have been running through my head all year.
[35:04]And I couldn't find a good framework on which to hang them.
[35:09]And then I think I finally hit on it.
[35:11]So I've been talking to my agent and my editor.
[35:13]It's sort of top secret for now,
[35:16]but it feels so good to be writing again.
[35:18]I worried that I would be a little cowed.
[35:22]You know, I wanted to wait as until I felt like I could be sure
[35:27]that I would write without censoring myself
[35:29]that I wouldn't be writing into my fear.
[35:31]And I'm finally at that place.
[35:33]It's been a year, I think I have some good perspective
[35:37]about what happened with this book
[35:39]and I know at the end of the day,
[35:42]I'm stronger because of it, you know?
[35:45]And maybe slightly more liberated actually, you know,
[35:49]because I think a lot of writers in this sort of cultural
[35:52]landscape are maybe fearful.
[35:55]I would be, I think, you know, of like trying to be free
[35:58]to write whatever they want because they may be weighing
[36:01]the potential cost if Twitter decides
[36:04]that what they've written is wrong for some reason.
[36:08]So they may be weighing that relatively heavily
[36:12]into their decisions about how they write
[36:14]and what they write.
[36:15]With me, I sort of feel like maybe I am just completely
[36:19]liberated because I already went through it and I survived.
[36:23]So maybe now that means I'm free
[36:26]to write whatever book I want.
[36:27]It's like ties back to where this all started, right?
[36:31]When you start your life with the worst thing ever happening,
[36:35]you have to build things from there, right?
[36:37]The worst has happened.
[36:39]The worst happened to your family,
[36:40]like something unthinkable and terrible.
[36:42]And yet you recovered and you realized you could go on.
[36:46]And now the same type of thing is like trauma essentially
[36:49]has happened with your book.
[36:50]And now like maybe it's all just destined
[36:54]like this next book.
[36:55]Maybe this is gonna be like the, I don't even know, right?
[36:58]All these things have conspired.
[36:59]So I don't know.
[37:00]It's any time you have a hardship in your life as a writer
[37:03]if you can take that and fold it into yourself
[37:06]and find a way to not be defeated by it,
[37:09]but to fold it into your work somehow
[37:12]that it can inform your work.
[37:13]It gives you greater perspective.
[37:14]It can make you a better writer.
[37:15]So that is, that is my hope.
[37:18]We'll see, we'll see.
[37:20]And is this where you write?
[37:21]Like where you are right now?
[37:22]Yeah, this is my office.
[37:24]It's away from the house.
[37:26]So thank God.
[37:27]So we have a detached garage and my office is above the garage.
[37:31]So I have to climb a ladder to get up here,
[37:33]but it's cozy and I cannot hear the homeschooling
[37:36]that's happening 30 feet away.
[37:38]So it's good.
[37:40]Yeah. Wow.
[37:41]That's why all the face times, I guess,
[37:44]our daughters both face time us quite often age 13.
[37:47]This is like, I don't know what I used to do to my mom,
[37:49]but I guess this is the equivalent of that kind of bothering
[37:52]of the mother.
[37:53]So yeah, then I'm fine decline decline.
[37:57]She can come climb the ladder and knock on the latch.
[38:00]If she needs me.
[38:01]Well, I need more of an obstacle to get into my office.
[38:04]I had just like a tiny hallway in Manhattan.
[38:06]Well, not so tiny, but it's right there.
[38:08]So perhaps the ladder, maybe some sort of,
[38:11]one of those things you put on the ground,
[38:13]like from a gym class, you know,
[38:14]those like the yellow thing anyway, whatever.
[38:18]Do you have any like inspiring type advice
[38:22]for the many people out there trying to write
[38:24]this great American novel?
[38:25]Yes, they should read this book.
[38:28]You have time to, by Zippy Owens, it's a great book.
[38:34]My advice, actually this is my advice, right?
[38:38]Read, read, read, read, read.
[38:40]I think that is the most important thing you can do
[38:42]as a writer.
[38:43]It makes you better, absolutely makes you better.
[38:46]Read as a writer, try to figure out the books you love.
[38:49]Why do you love them?
[38:50]What did the writer do in those books?
[38:52]Pay attention to the craft.
[38:54]I have found at this point that when I am reading a book
[38:59]that I absolutely love, that is the only time
[39:03]I'm not paying attention to the craft.
[39:05]And then if it's almost flawless, you know,
[39:08]and then you have to go back and read it again
[39:10]and figure out like why was it so good?
[39:12]What did they do?
[39:13]What were their tricks, you know,
[39:14]because I think the craft is really visible
[39:17]in books that are like the three and four star books
[39:20]that you really enjoy, but you don't,
[39:23]you're not rapturous about them, right?
[39:25]You can see why.
[39:27]And so I think all of that kind of reading is huge,
[39:32]it's crucial to being a good writer.
[39:34]Thank you so much for coming on mom's no time to read book.
[39:37]Thank you so much.
[39:38]It was really enjoyable.
[39:39]Zippy, good to see you.
[39:40]Thank you so much.
[39:41]Thanks everybody.
[39:43]Thanks for listening to this episode of mom's
[39:45]don't have time to read books.
[39:47]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram,
[39:49]at Zippy Owens and at mom's don't have time to read books.
[39:52]Also sign up for my newsletter at zippyowens.com
[39:55]and sign up for my virtual book club
[39:56]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[39:59]Thanks so much to-
[40:00]Steve and Ryan in fact, Texture Sound for the Sound Editing,
[40:03]and thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[40:04]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.