Margaret Verble, WHEN TWO FEATHERS FELL FROM THE SKY
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[0:41]Margaret Verbal is the author of When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky.
[0:45]Margaret is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.
[0:48]Her first novel, Mods Line, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
[0:52]Her second novel, Cherokee America, has recently been listed by the New York Times as one
[0:57]of the 100 notable books of the year for 2019, so it wasn't so recent, but anyway.
[1:02]She lives in Lexington, Kentucky.
[1:04]Welcome, Margaret.
[1:06]Thank you so much for coming on Mom's End of Time to Read books to discuss when Two Feathers
[1:10]fell from the sky.
[1:12]Thank you.
[1:13]Bye.
[1:14]I am still recovering from the feeling that you created when Two Feathers and her horse
[1:21]fell through the tank, got stuck underground in the caves, and like couldn't emerge.
[1:26]I was having like, claustrophobia induced reading at that, at what happened afterwards.
[1:32]So, thank you, I guess, for the immersive read, if I should say, but would you enjoy
[1:39]this sort of?
[1:40]I did enjoy it.
[1:43]I found it all very fascinating, especially all of the research that you did about how
[1:50]this is what was happening in your neighborhood in Nashville, and how you've even discovered
[1:54]how this, you know, the book starts with a sweeping sort of tale of where this place came
[2:01]to be and how we got rooted in that place and how, and then we find out that you even
[2:05]found like hip-hopotovous bones or something like that near your back tree, or I didn't
[2:10]know something.
[2:11]So, tell me a little more about how your neighborhood and home inspired the story.
[2:17]Well, I was raised in a neighborhood in Nashville that we knew as children had been built
[2:26]over the ruins of a zoo, but most vegans absolutely loved that park and that zoo had been there
[2:37]from the late 1880s to 1931, and it was, if you talk to people's parents and grandparents,
[2:46]they thought it was most magnificent playing in Nashville.
[2:49]They really just loved it.
[2:50]People went there to court and to have fun and, you know, do all sorts of things.
[2:56]And there were remnants of that park and zoo all around us, and as a child, my head
[3:03]was for that big tree that was behind my next door neighbor's fence was had been where
[3:14]either the hip-hopotovous or the run-nostered stand at the end.
[3:18]Now, we didn't know which one, and probably at the time, we didn't know the difference
[3:24]between hip-hopotovous and run-vostress because, you know, we were living in the 1950s
[3:30]and, you know, kids didn't have all that information.
[3:33]Anyway, we liked to dig around things and so we got into digging around the roots of
[3:39]that tree because it was sort of overturned because it was so old.
[3:43]and we found this huge bone, and it was a shoulder bone.
[3:48]And so we, you know, we were so thrilled, and one of us ran in to get a father, you know,
[3:54]I go get your parents, so got a neighbor's father, and he came out and he looked at it.
[4:02]And he was, he was real, he was a real straight-up guy, he was a devout Catholic, and he
[4:08]said, it's disrespectful to dig up bones, put that back in there.
[4:12]So we had to put the bone back into the ground, and I never did know if it was a hip-hopotovous
[4:19]bone or a rhinoceros bone, or of course it could have been any other kind of large animal
[4:23]bone prawn, but I always, you know, thought it was one of those.
[4:28]And so I started researching, to write this book, I thought, I need to find that out.
[4:36]And in my research, I found one mention of a hip-hopotomous at the Glendale Park Zoo in 1926,
[4:48]and I found no mention ever of rhinoceros.
[4:52]So I set the book in 1926 when I knew that hip-hop was there.
[4:59]Wow.
[5:00]What a...
[5:01]That's amazing.
[5:02]I love that story.
[5:04]I love it too.
[5:05]It tickles me to this side.
[5:08]And then how did you come up with the whole rest of the narrative?
[5:15]Why this diver, how the recovery, by the way, the way you described what it was like
[5:21]to get injured as a performer back then.
[5:23]And of course, there's no safety net, literally, and figuratively, right?
[5:27]It's like she just plunged, she had no resources, even taking the train home would have
[5:31]been based on her rib accident, which was like very painful for her to take the train all
[5:37]the way back to her home.
[5:38]Like, what happens?
[5:39]How do you recover?
[5:41]All of that, you know, talk about, just tell me a little bit about this and how the central
[5:46]feature of this girl's life, too, and how, you know, every, every dive, every performance
[5:53]is she's taking her life into her hands.
[5:56]Well, I faced her on female performers and wild West shows.
[6:02]And what we read a couple of books on that, and I've gotten interested in that because
[6:09]I was up in which Erky's culture, the jerky outlet, which is really the northern part
[6:15]of Oklahoma.
[6:16]I was up there in Pompa City a couple of years before I wrote the book, and I had run
[6:22]into, I was in a museum, or in actually this store called when there was a museum
[6:29]and a basement, and I'd run into what was left of the 101 Ranch, and it was astonishing.
[6:37]I'd never seen things like it.
[6:39]It was the last surviving wild West show.
[6:42]So I got interested in the 101 Ranch, which was world known at the time it existed, which
[6:50]was for decades.
[6:51]I mean, if people came from Europe, they went to that ranch, like people go to New York
[6:57]or Disneyland today, they go to that ranch, and it was just warm up, and then they sent
[7:03]entertainers all over the world.
[7:06]And so I got interested in these cowgirls, and they were doing just a stonish and tricks
[7:14]on these, on these horses, and they were, you know, they were wrangling bulls and
[7:19]and all sorts of things that, you know, it's almost unimaginable.
[7:23]And I mean, I think the only one that we really know, I think that now is Andy Oakwood,
[7:28]but you know, there was just a whole slew of them.
[7:32]And so, and some of them were diving on these horses off these platforms.
[7:37]That was a big, that was a big thing from about 1890 to really into the, you know, it
[7:46]got out in about 1930s, but it went on until about the 1950s.
[7:52]And in fact, I think there are a couple of places that they were still doing.
[7:56]I mean, it seems bizarre to us, not all, you know, it did, to me at least, but these
[8:02]people were doing this, and everybody just thought it was gorgeous in the time.
[8:05]Just a lot.
[8:06]So I thought that was a good thing to have my hair one day, and I discovered in my research
[8:13]that they're actually had them a diving tonic, and the Glendale partners, and their
[8:19]had been female performers diving off of platforms on the horses.
[8:25]So it was sort of a natural thing to my crew, then.
[8:28]I feel like this is what was the Hugh of Jackman movie?
[8:31]Did you see, to no time at this, where he, where he, the famous Hugh Jackman, where
[8:36]he, he, he, he like basically find establishes a circus in his, oh, I did not see that
[8:42]and I, I know, I know what you're talking about, and I see the movie.
[8:46]I like saying anything, he's, yeah, he's great, but I know he's great, and I, I know
[8:52]he's great, anyway, there's that, it's the same sort of entertainment shock value.
[8:59]This is how people congregated before and how, and yet, and yet to be in the mind and
[9:05]backstage, I found super fascinating, particularly, you know, some of the dynamics and some
[9:11]of even the racial dynamics, and what it means to be Native American, and to have, then
[9:17]having to rely on people who owned all the caves to help out, right, and all of that,
[9:21]and, and the different things that sort of simmered in the community.
[9:24]So, was that sort of, was that based on the times as well or no?
[9:28]Well, you know, really, basically, at the, at the core of the novel, I was trying to
[9:35]write an entertaining novel, yeah, but yeah, that's significant novel, and I was really
[9:40]trying to write an advice, and about, you know, fundamentally, at one level, about the
[9:47]Cherokees, and the Creeks, and the Shawnee, being run out, what is now central Tennessee.
[9:56]And so, you know, I had always been concerned.
[10:00]with that. Since I was child, I was concerned with that history and how they had
[10:04]history bestowed, but it was also raised in the segregated South. So I was
[10:10]interested in writing about that because even as a child and growing up in it,
[10:18]not knowing, you know, I'd never been North, but you could tell it, you know,
[10:21]it was just crazy. It was crazy to treat people that way. And none of it made
[10:26]sense. And the rules, you know, there are official rules and then they're
[10:30]on official rules. And everybody was always negotiating the rules. And so I was
[10:36]interested in writing about that. And so I was able to get, I was able to get both of
[10:42]those things into that book. And I think a pleasant way to play that, you know,
[10:46]why does not alarm me. Right. Well, I mean, the best way to get any point
[10:51]across is through telling a story. Right. Exactly. Very true. So you were the
[11:02]finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Like, what was that? Like, how did it tell me
[11:07]about that moment in your life when you found that news out? What does that
[11:11]like? Well, I was in my basement office. I had two basement offices and
[11:17]actually literary and study upstairs, which I can't use because it's too
[11:21]for Zoom, because it's too far from my rather. But I was in my other basement
[11:26]office down here. And I was writing the email and phone room. And it was my
[11:32]agent's secretary. And she said, Lynn was to talk to you. Have you heard yet? And
[11:40]said her walk. And she said, well, let me let Lynn. So Lynn knows about my agent
[11:48]got on the phone. And she said, personally, she says, no more says, I've got
[11:52]wonderful news to you. She says, you didn't win this prize. Okay. She said, but
[12:03]you were runner up. And she said, that's going to change your life. And then
[12:08]she told me quite a fun. Because the word fun was for a policy president, how
[12:12]the politicians are done as opposed to other prices a little bit different. So
[12:15]she explained all that. And she said, this is fabulous. And she said, I went
[12:19]poetry two hours ago, but I had to call your publisher because we had to get
[12:24]the badge from the paperback book. And, you know, better be sure that was done.
[12:29]And, you know, she was right. It did change my life. It was life. It's a life
[12:34]changing. And how did it change your life? Well, because it gives you a lot of
[12:39]credibility. And, you know, there are not many people that who are finalists
[12:43]for the pollister and things like fiction, there are a lot of finalists for
[12:47]pollisters and and bullets of winners and journalism. But fiction, that's not
[12:52]true. And so it gave me instant credibility. And now I say anything, people
[12:58]think that smart. And it goes, sometimes I have no idea what I'm talking about.
[13:07]So I try not to sound too emphatic when I talk because I know there's a
[13:14]built in willingness to believe me. And, you know, sometimes, yeah, I should not
[13:19]be believing that whatever it is, I'm saying it does that did it make you feel more
[13:27]pressured to write something like amazing. Like, or was it more a relief? Like, you
[13:32]don't have to prove anything anymore. So when you tackle a project like this, because
[13:39]it's there's research and there's topography and there's backstory and there's narrative
[13:44]and character development and all the good things that go into a novel. How do you tackle
[13:49]that? Is it in your basement study with post-its all over the walls or do you allow yourself
[13:54]to go upstairs and put papers all over the carpet like to get me a visual of how you're
[13:59]doing this? Well, I no longer write in the basement. I write upstairs in my study. But
[14:05]when I come to a most line, I didn't have to do much research on. I read a couple of books,
[14:11]three or four books, maybe about 1927. Because it's a year that's written about a great
[14:19]deal. And so I wanted background on that. But on that, I didn't have to do any research
[14:25]for that. Cherokee America. I did a lot of research for Cherokee America and that took years
[14:32]and years of research. I did a lot of research for when two others fell from the sky.
[14:39]That took about maybe a year and a half of research. I had a novel coming out a year
[14:45]from the sacral. I didn't know research for it at all. So it varies on what I'm trying
[14:51]to write about. And tell me about that novel. Well, it's still going back and forth between
[14:59]my editor now. I think we're in the last phases of that. So it had been sent to production
[15:05]yet. But it's a short novel. And it's got a main character who ranges from six years out
[15:14]about 11 years old in the novel. And it's set in the middle of America. And they've given
[15:21]me my talking points. That's okay. We'll find out later. What kind of books do you like
[15:29]to read? Well, I read a lot of nonfiction. And in part, that's because if I'm writing a novel,
[15:36]I don't want the voice of somebody else's novel in my head. I don't want it to interfere
[15:43]with whatever I'm writing. So it's certain times I won't read fiction at all. Until I get a voice
[15:48]really nailed down in a novel. I just read nonfiction. Right at the moment, I'm read a
[15:54]biography of Oscar Wilde. And you know, thoroughly enjoying this completely unlike anything in my
[16:01]life or anything going on. And it's a brilliant biography. And so I'm enjoying it right now.
[16:08]Amazing. So when you're not writing, researching, and reading, and doing all the literary things,
[16:14]what's like your go-to pastime? What do you really enjoy? What's a guilty pleasure?
[16:19]Well, I exercise every day. And of course, I had another job, too, that I had done for 40 years.
[16:27]And some, I do that sporadically. It depends on me traveling and staying up in front of people.
[16:35]And so I haven't done a lot of it in the last two years. I'm getting ready to spend
[16:39]two weeks in April doing that job. Which job is that? And which job is that? I train people
[16:44]how to ask for organ dimensions. And I have done that for a long, long time and still continue to do
[16:53]it. I don't do it as much as I used to because travel was killing me, but still good. I still
[16:59]enjoy it, still love it. So that hopefully, and I publish it might be. So that takes, that takes
[17:05]time. Well, amazing. Do you have any advice for aspiring authors? Well, I think my main advice is
[17:15]that you have to keep writing. Writing is a craft. It's not just like, oh, I've got an inspiration
[17:24]or this interesting thing happens. It's like I'll write it down. It's a real craft. And most people
[17:33]get discouraged before they get really good at that craft. And the only way to get really good
[17:41]at it is to do it every single day. And so that's what I would say. I've been at this morning
[17:49]writing and get up every morning and run. And, you know, it's like he's like practicing for
[17:55]a sports event or the limits or something. You got to do it every day. You just can't think about
[18:02]do it. You can't just talk about doing it. You can't just talk about the writers. We got to write.
[18:08]Perfect. I love it. Well, Margaret, thank you. I hope that you get out of your basement and
[18:15]I'm like having this fear. What happens if we're on Zoom and you keep choking and next thing
[18:20]you know, I'm like, wait. You know, you're alone in Nashville. I'm assuming like in the bottom of
[18:27]your house. Like, oh, my gosh. No, I'll be okay. Okay. All right. Where are you? I'm in New York City.
[18:37]Oh, yeah. Okay. All right. Is it cold or cold or not? Not as bad as usual. So, you know, how about
[18:43]there? You know, it's raining here. Yeah. Yeah. So nice to go. All right. Well, I'm good day to podcast.
[18:54]Good day to write. All right. Thank you so much for your time. Okay. You too. Bye bye.
[19:01]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[19:05]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zibi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read
[19:09]Books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zibiowans.com and sign up for my virtual book club and
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[19:19]texture sound for the sound editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing
[19:23]this fantastic intro and out trim music.