Eirinie Carson, THE DEAD ARE GODS
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zippy Owens, and you're listening to moms don't have time to read books.
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[1:03]Here in E. Carson is the author of the Dead Our Gods, a memoir.
[1:07]Earney actually is going to be one of our authors at our upcoming retreat in the Santa
[1:12]Barbara wine country, which you should all check out at zippyretreates.com.
[1:17]Earney is a black British writer born to a Jamaican father and Scottish mother and raised
[1:22]in southeast London.
[1:23]She currently lives in Northern California with her family and has been published in the
[1:27]Sonora Review.
[1:28]She is a frequent contributor to mother magazine.
[1:31]The Dead Our Gods is her debut book.
[1:33]Hi.
[1:34]Hi.
[1:35]How are you?
[1:36]I'm good.
[1:37]How are you?
[1:38]Great.
[1:39]Thank you.
[1:40]Nice.
[1:41]It's so nice to meet you.
[1:42]Beautiful rainbow organized books.
[1:46]Thank you.
[1:47]Yes.
[1:48]That's lovely.
[1:50]I really loved your book.
[1:53]I read it a while ago.
[1:54]This is one where I was like, I know I don't have this podcast for a while, but I'm going
[1:57]to cut the line and read what I want to read.
[1:59]Yay.
[2:00]Oh my gosh.
[2:01]Thank you so much.
[2:02]How I rebel in my own little world against my son.
[2:06]We got it.
[2:07]We got to take away.
[2:08]We can get it.
[2:09]I think.
[2:10]Thank you.
[2:11]That means so much.
[2:12]I am so honored.
[2:13]It's funny to kind of put your heart out there and be like, I don't know.
[2:18]I hope people like it.
[2:20]What can I say?
[2:21]No.
[2:22]I loved it.
[2:23]The Dead Our Gods was so moving and so intimate about loss and grief and general.
[2:32]Like what it feels like to just all of it was so raw and real.
[2:37]I have lost a friend and it just took me back and oh my gosh.
[2:41]It was so good.
[2:42]I really loved it.
[2:43]Great job.
[2:44]Thank you.
[2:45]I'm sorry about your friends.
[2:46]No, no.
[2:47]Sorry about your friends.
[2:48]Did you tell me what your friend's name was again?
[2:51]I know.
[2:52]I know it.
[2:53]Oh, no.
[2:54]That's okay.
[2:55]And this was a long time ago.
[2:56]But her name was Stacy and it was 9-11.
[2:58]But it's the same like one day you wake up and then how could they just not be there?
[3:02]And I was 25 and I feel like friendship at that age is so critical.
[3:08]This is your podcast.
[3:09]I'm talking too much.
[3:10]Tell me more about your book.
[3:12]Okay.
[3:13]I will absolutely tell you more about my book, but I do think it's kind of, I don't know.
[3:17]There's like a collective conversation to be had about grief and who gets to talk about
[3:21]it and how much space we can take up with it.
[3:24]And so I want to hear about Stacy.
[3:25]I think that's like, that's part of the whole thing.
[3:28]Yeah.
[3:29]I'm sorry that she's not here.
[3:31]And my book is also about a friend who passed away and name was Larissa.
[3:36]We met when we were like, I was 14, I think.
[3:40]I really have to go over my notes and make sure I'm getting that right because it's one
[3:44]of those friendships where we were just like so enmeshed that like it felt like we were always
[3:48]together.
[3:49]But we kind of had one of those formative friendships that really shapes you.
[3:54]And she died suddenly almost five years ago now and this book is about the loss of her.
[4:01]It's about our collective memories, my friend and writer, Beth McCall described it as
[4:06]a love letter and a time capsule and I really think that's just the best way to describe
[4:10]it.
[4:11]That's how it feels to me.
[4:12]Yeah.
[4:13]And about kind of what we do with that love when the other person is dead.
[4:17]It's true.
[4:18]There's no, there's no manual for any of this despite not any attempts.
[4:24]You had a really beautiful passage, well, many beautiful passages, but do you mind
[4:30]if I read like a paragraph or something?
[4:32]Oh, yes, please.
[4:33]This is chapter 12.
[4:35]I feel like a mess some days.
[4:36]I feel like a mess some days, most days.
[4:39]I feel as if I should be doing better.
[4:41]No one talks about her.
[4:42]No one asks how I'm doing.
[4:44]The flush of flowers and condolence texts made me think that perhaps grieving was permitted
[4:49]that my mood was warranted.
[4:51]Suddenly those dried up and now I assume that I should be over it, that I should be
[4:55]laced up and find in public.
[4:57]No one asks about her.
[4:59]Should I be fine?
[5:00]I don't feel fine.
[5:02]Should I be over it?
[5:03]I don't feel over it.
[5:05]I want to be.
[5:06]I want to not feel the sting of tears in my eyes.
[5:08]I want to not excuse myself to go to the bathroom and do some deep breathing exercises to
[5:13]keep from smiling.
[5:14]I want to have something in common with these people at work, these friends I meet for
[5:17]drinks.
[5:18]I want to be able to be genuine and feel love and joy and smile and forget, but I
[5:22]can't.
[5:23]Oh, gosh.
[5:24]It makes me want to cry.
[5:26]Oh, it's beautiful.
[5:28]No, there is also, it's like there's this division all of a sudden, which I feel like
[5:33]you write about so well, this whole, like this is what I'm going through and this seemingly
[5:38]what everyone else is going through and there seems to be such a gap.
[5:41]Yeah.
[5:42]Yeah, it's funny.
[5:43]I think there's just this reluctance and I've definitely done it too to kind of
[5:48]step into someone else's grief.
[5:50]Like, you don't really want to see them cry.
[5:52]You don't know what you'd say if they did cry and they seem fine.
[5:55]Why ask about that thing and upset that I'm one really, no one's fine.
[6:00]I'm just kind of masquerading like we know that we have to go to work today.
[6:05]We know that we have to take the kids to school today and those things must be done
[6:10]regardless of how our heart feels.
[6:13]So I envision a world where these conversations are more candid and like you feel like
[6:19]you can talk about Stacy and have it take up space in the room with me alongside me.
[6:24]Well, Larissa, first of all, I love how you included all of your conversations because it
[6:31]left us get to know her and you and your friendship like as a third party, even though it's
[6:36]a memoir.
[6:37]That was really great.
[6:38]How you ended all your chapters with those intimate funny, you know, sometimes totally
[6:42]banal just like every day conversations that we get a glimpse into those.
[6:49]But tell me more about Larissa and I know I know her from the book.
[6:53]But what do I not know like how would you talk about her?
[6:57]How could they feel like they know a little piece of her after a quick, you know, description?
[7:02]Well, she was incredibly cool.
[7:05]She looked cool.
[7:06]She was incredibly beautiful.
[7:07]She was like this dark skin black woman with like fairy cat like eyes.
[7:11]She dressed mostly in this kind of honky rock and roll way, but she also had the ability
[7:19]to kind of throw on something custom and make it look amazing.
[7:24]And she was a super cool person.
[7:25]So you'd see her across the room and think there's no way that person is interested in
[7:29]like what I have to say.
[7:31]that she could turn the light on you and make you feel just as special as she appeared
[7:38]to be.
[7:39]I think that was her greatest talent with me.
[7:41]And there was an intimacy to loving her that was just, oh, it was like holding a hand all
[7:48]the time.
[7:49]It was so safe and loving and probably like my, one of my biggest loves, I think, definitely
[7:55]my biggest non romantic love.
[7:58]So take me through how and when you decided to write this book, like it's one thing
[8:04]to go through the grief and mourning and all of it, but it's quite another to put it
[8:10]on paper and then it's another thing even more to like get it in great shape and publish
[8:15]it and then go through editing around.
[8:16]I mean, it's like a whole thing.
[8:18]So why go down the path and how did you decide and then what what did it end up being
[8:22]like for you?
[8:23]Oh, well, it started just I knew I wanted to read something at the rest of the funeral.
[8:28]And so I began to write a udji and I just didn't really stop like I just couldn't, there
[8:34]was no end to it.
[8:35]I was like, I want to have this other thought that I want to write about and so after
[8:38]the funeral, I kept writing and I would write these like long, long essays and send them
[8:43]to my friend's stuff and she eventually who stopped me and was like, you have enough
[8:48]for a book.
[8:49]Do you know that?
[8:50]Oh, never thought about it as a kind of a public facing thing at the time.
[8:56]It was just catharsis and just getting through my grief.
[9:01]And then that kind of began to take shape and we talked about including kind of these
[9:06]personal emails that would I had hoped show the rest of us.
[9:10]They're a 3D person because it's one thing to have me talk about her and describe her
[9:14]to you, the reader and it's another thing for you to like see proof of her.
[9:20]I had all of these voice notes.
[9:21]We would watch out for each other a lot because we lived in two different countries.
[9:24]You lived in Paris and I was here in California and we had all these voice notes and
[9:30]at her funeral, I played a voice note of her laugh, which was like the most jarring sounds
[9:35]but fabulous.
[9:37]And I remember thinking I wonder how I could get something like that into the book and
[9:41]it's paper.
[9:42]So I did emails instead, but I'm keeping those voice notes just to get them transcribed.
[9:49]Yeah, that's true.
[9:51]I couldn't.
[9:52]And like let me help you like download and send them to a transcribing.
[9:58]Oh, that would be amazing.
[10:00]Yeah, also I have a fantasy of reading the audio book
[10:03]and including those, but we'll see.
[10:05]I'm sorry, I'm sorry in the seeds.
[10:07]You should do that.
[10:08]I'm sorry my publisher.
[10:09]No, you should definitely do that
[10:10]like between all the chapters and, you know.
[10:14]Yeah, that's what I envision.
[10:16]Oh, my gosh.
[10:18]Well, yeah, definitely get that done.
[10:19]I feel like that's one of the first things in last is like,
[10:22]I immediately take stock of, okay, what do I have?
[10:25]Like, let me get it.
[10:26]And I like frantic, it's usually the middle of the night
[10:28]and I'm like going through all these papers
[10:30]and emails to me are not, I don't know.
[10:34]It's not as rewarding as like the handwritten note
[10:37]somebody put under my door or something, you know.
[10:40]That's very true.
[10:41]I do think though, like most of the emails
[10:44]that I included in the book are from like the early 2000s.
[10:47]And there was like a specific way we had of like,
[10:50]even the abbreviations that we use are different
[10:53]to what we use now.
[10:54]And so there is this kind of time capsule all moment
[10:58]in those emails that I don't know.
[11:00]But like you said, I think you're just like searching
[11:02]for meaning and something that you tangible
[11:05]that you can look at.
[11:05]So for me, the emails were the thing that I was like,
[11:10]let me read every single boring correspondence
[11:13]we have.
[11:13]No, I don't mean to say I don't read them.
[11:16]I, you know, I always like, yes, of course,
[11:19]those are amazing to have.
[11:20]But I'm just like, where even are they?
[11:22]Then you go switch email servers and like, I don't know.
[11:26]Never.
[11:27]But I'm just like, did I even print them out?
[11:30]And now where are they?
[11:31]Like, I would like to read them down
[11:32]in the stratosphere somewhere.
[11:34]Yeah, it's just going to put me here.
[11:36]Yeah, but, well, did you find it difficult to write the book?
[11:41]Yes.
[11:42]I think what was my saving grace was that I didn't know
[11:46]it was going to be a book for a while.
[11:48]Yeah.
[11:49]So for a long time, it was just mine.
[11:50]It was just, and that's something that I'm kind of
[11:53]adjusting to now that it's in bookstores,
[11:56]but it was something that was precious in mine.
[11:58]And it was my process.
[12:00]And it was the thing that anchored me to this world
[12:03]when I felt like my grief threatened to just like spiral me off.
[12:07]So I kind of felt like that was my gravity.
[12:13]And so it was hard, but it was mine and hard.
[12:17]I wasn't like, will this grief translate to other people?
[12:21]And I think that's what sounds like.
[12:23]Resonates with people is that it's raw,
[12:26]and it's raw because I wasn't thinking about an audience at the time.
[12:30]It wasn't until the editing process that I was like,
[12:32]oh shit.
[12:34]My mom's going to read this, but yeah, it was hard.
[12:39]It was hard.
[12:40]It's hard now.
[12:41]I mean, I read it at a couple of lunch events
[12:42]and I've read passages and every time at the readings,
[12:47]I'm like, hey guys, I just want you to know.
[12:48]I probably will cry and we still get more comfortable with tears.
[12:52]But if that happens, let's all just try and sit in that feeling for a minute.
[12:59]Wow. Well, how could it not be emotional to sort of delve back in all the time?
[13:03]Really?
[13:03]You know, I have a great therapist.
[13:05]So, oh, good.
[13:07]OK, I mean, after reading your book, you're like, oh, she must.
[13:12]Yeah, oh, I'm big into therapy.
[13:14]Yeah, I've got to have one of that.
[13:17]What are you doing in California now?
[13:19]Are you there? Is that where you live now?
[13:20]I live here, yeah. My husband's American, California,
[13:23]and so I moved here when we got married, like, very traditional,
[13:27]accidentally. And yeah, I'm raising two British American children here
[13:32]and writing this second book that is a fiction to kind of step away
[13:39]from the nonfiction world for a little bit.
[13:42]Interesting.
[13:43]Wait, tell me about the novel.
[13:44]Oh, OK. Well, I have to specify the fiction
[13:48]because when I told my husband what it was about,
[13:50]he was like, are you sure we don't have anything to talk about?
[13:53]It's about, it's about a postpartum woman who decides to kill her husband.
[14:00]It's like, oh, my gosh, my husband.
[14:03]Yeah, he was like, you just wrote a memoir.
[14:07]Are you sure that this isn't also part two?
[14:09]And I was like, no, you're still very much alive and well.
[14:12]So yeah, it was just like fun to not write about this kind of
[14:15]personal stuff and take a little creative license
[14:19]with my work. And it was, yeah, it's a fun thing.
[14:22]I have a two year old. So I started it when I was deeply postpartum
[14:26]and made it be some of those feelings or a little closer to the surface.
[14:29]Yeah, that's the plan for the future.
[14:31]Oh, it's exciting.
[14:32]So what is your process like when you're writing?
[14:36]Where do you like to write?
[14:38]And I know that it was not intended to be this one.
[14:41]The Dead or Gods is not intended to be a published book at first.
[14:45]But when you are pouring your heart out or when you're writing knowing,
[14:48]it's going to be published. Do you handle this differently?
[14:51]Where do you like to do all of it?
[14:53]I am like a big fan of my notes app.
[14:57]It's like the most convenient thing for me when I'm like,
[15:01]I've just done a drop off, but I have this thought.
[15:04]Let me draw it down or I just got the kid to sleep,
[15:07]but I'm sitting on the end of her bed waiting to make sure
[15:10]like I leave the room and I jot something down and then I
[15:13]move it to to Microsoft Word and play with it.
[15:16]But I found that I write Endings first, which is interesting.
[15:21]Like the last chapter of the Dead or Gods was written very early on.
[15:26]Just like the last couple paragraphs was something I was like mulling over.
[15:30]And so, and then I came back to it and I was like, oh, it's the end.
[15:33]And I did the same with this new book that I'm working on where I wrote the last scene.
[15:39]I think I'm someone who likes to have a destination.
[15:42]So now I know where the path is going.
[15:45]I just have to get there.
[15:46]And are you doing more?
[15:48]I know you've said a couple times sort of wanting to normalize talking about grief.
[15:54]Like do you feel like that sort of an embedded mission in what you're doing?
[15:58]And are you taking that message elsewhere?
[16:01]Like are you, you know, what are we doing with that?
[16:03]I would say I would love to I did a teaching course on writing about grief.
[16:09]Last summer, that was just I taught it and it was really exciting and fun.
[16:13]I want to do more of that.
[16:15]I feel like that's like my missionary work.
[16:17]And then just at my readings, I talk a lot about what I envision kind of living in a
[16:23]society where grief is kind of immeshed in everyday life.
[16:26]And your dead people are still alongside you because it's not scary to talk about them.
[16:35]Or think about them or feel sad about them.
[16:38]My first question I ask anyone, I look at a lot of people coming up to me and saying,
[16:43]your book meant so much because I lost this person.
[16:46]My first question is always what is their name because I feel like there is so
[16:51]much loneliness in grief.
[16:53]And most of that is because no one ever asks because it's scary and might upset
[16:58]you, but that makes you feel isolated and having someone say the name of your
[17:03]dead person can feel pretty powerful, you know?
[17:06]It's like, well, one more person knows about them.
[17:08]One more person will keep them alive.
[17:11]Mm-hmm.
[17:12]It's true.
[17:13]Yeah.
[17:14]It's one of those things.
[17:15]It's like, it's not going to upset you to talk about it.
[17:17]You're already upset.
[17:18]Yeah.
[17:19]It's not like they're telling you your friend is dying.
[17:21]Right.
[17:22]You know what I mean?
[17:23]I'm already about that.
[17:24]I'm already about that.
[17:25]Exactly.
[17:26]Yeah.
[17:27]Same thing with, I think some people feel bad, like sharing a memory or should I tell
[17:32]you the story or I'm like, yes, you know, tell me the story of like, oh, like even some
[17:39]nam, it's like Facebook was like, do you know that I knew your grandmother when she
[17:43]was younger?
[17:44]I was like, no way.
[17:45]Tell me every little bit, you know, it's not like that's going to make me sad.
[17:49]So I mean, it makes me happy to get to know, like you think that getting to know someone
[17:53]ends when they're gone, but then every little dribble of information that comes out of
[17:58]somebody else, you're like, oh my gosh, and that allows me to know them more.
[18:01]Absolutely.
[18:02]I always feel like there's that can be a deeper examination of someone after that dead
[18:07]because there's no, I don't know, whatever barriers they put up to stop you from knowing
[18:13]certain things, you kind of, you kind of get to peek over the wall a little bit.
[18:17]I also feel like there's a lot of overlap in grief and postpartum, which is probably
[18:24]why the manuscript I'm working on now came out, but there is that it's a similar kind of
[18:29]thing.
[18:30]Like, everything's fine and I'm fine, except I'm not fine and I would love to tell you
[18:34]more.
[18:36]Yeah, I'm fine, but no, yeah, SQL, yeah, SQL to exactly, oh, I've got the title, I'm
[18:44]done.
[18:45]Are there books that you turn to where authors that you were comforted by or that you
[18:52]read during grief?
[18:53]Where before?
[18:54]Oh, no.
[18:55]So it's a sneeze, like headed off at the past by a young, but anyway, sorry about that.
[19:04]I always yawning.
[19:07]I'm surprised that hasn't happened yet, very tired books.
[19:10]I read the year of magical thinking was the thing that everyone was like, read this
[19:14]thing, read this book and I read it and I did, I did love it.
[19:17]I know people, I feel like it's kind of polarizing some people post grief or during grief
[19:23]that I hated it, hated it, whereas I kind of loved that very candid description of the
[19:29]just how mad you can be in grief, just how crazy, how unhinged your thought process
[19:35]becomes and it feels completely normal and fine.
[19:39]I loved that and also the songwriter singer Nick Cave has a really beautiful series of kind
[19:49]of reader letters that he built called the red hand files.
[19:55]He lost two of his sons and just...
[20:00]It talks about grief and death in such a beautiful, candid way, and really validates that
[20:07]a lot of that madness. So I really love to those sort of definitely touchstones for me.
[20:15]Amazing. Okay, so when you're not
[20:18]soulfully helping people through the worst days of their life in some way,
[20:22]shape or form, and you're not being a mom and dealing with all of them, that's
[20:27]that all that that comes with. Is there anything else that you get time to do, or that you
[20:32]like to deal? Do you go on walks? What do you do like grocery shopping? Like, I don't know,
[20:37]give me a sense of your life and what you do when you're not. Well, I do love walking. I have a dog
[20:42]who's getting quite old, but he still will keep pace with me. So we do that. I work at a writer's residence
[20:51]part-time, kind of supporting, it's called the Mate of Refuge, it supports like social justice and
[20:57]climate justice writers specifically. So that takes up a little more time. And then just like,
[21:05]baby shit, like two-year-old shit. What am I doing with the, we go to swim class, we go to the library,
[21:11]we lots of stuff like that. I feel like outside of the writing, my life is pretty pedestrian.
[21:18]The coolest thing about me is that my husband's in a rock band. And so sometimes if I'm lucky,
[21:24]and can find childcare, I will go on tour with him for a stop or two. That is really cool.
[21:30]Yeah, that's the sexiest part of my life. But can I even ask what rock band should I know this?
[21:36]I'm sorry. No, he should know that. He is a drummer, backbone of the band, some might say,
[21:42]he might say. Yeah, but he's, he's free dreaming, he's pretty cool.
[21:50]Well, we do have a set of electronic drums, which I thought was genius because first my older
[21:56]son wanted to play the drums. So we got that and required headphones, you know, like you cannot hear
[22:01]that. That's just so great. That's what you need really. My father-in-law also used to play
[22:06]drums in the sixties in San Francisco. And my daughter's like second birth, they might
[22:12]hold us. He got her a drum kit. Just like, thank you so much. No, it was lovely and she loves them,
[22:19]but they are right above the kitchen. And so when I'm making dinner sometimes that's the soundtrack.
[22:26]Nice. Oh my gosh. Amazing. Well, thank you so much. This is so great. Yeah.
[22:32]Told you it'd be easy. Yeah, it was easy. This was a breeze, really delightful. And I need to
[22:39]somehow teleport into the room that you're in because that looks like a lovely place to sit.
[22:43]If you're in New York, come by. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. I'll be there.
[22:46]I'm six hours. It'll be here. I'll take. Yeah. Great to see you.
[22:52]Are you into LA area, by the way? Are you, I don't know. I'm just north of San Francisco in like
[22:57]Sonoma County. Oh, that's so nice. We're actually. Oh, wait. I have a great idea. We're doing,
[23:02]well, no, never mind. Well, even still, we're doing a retreat for Zippy media with like 50 to 75
[23:10]women and a couple authors in September 22nd to 24th in the wine country of Santa Barbara. Oh, my gosh.
[23:17]Do you want to be featured speakers? Yes, please. Yes. Oh, my gosh, Zippy. Please don't tease me.
[23:24]I would love for that. I'm not teasing you. I think it would be really awesome. Okay. Okay. Okay.
[23:29]It said, we're going to do a resort in solving called the Lansby. And we have another
[23:35]woman coming who wrote a book that we're publishing called Wine People and another one called
[23:40]End Credits about a woman who sort of all different topics here. But this is great because we can
[23:46]do a whole thing on grief. We can do a whole fun wine tasting. Wine and grief. One is about
[23:50]career. So I love it. We could do wine, yeah, wine and grief and careers. Like what else do you
[23:56]need? What else do you'll set? You're sad. Yeah. And that's nothing. You'll get one more author.
[24:02]Okay. You're in. Sure. Yeah. I'm in. Okay. That's awesome. Awesome. Okay. So hopefully I have your
[24:10]email or I'll get it from your publicist. And yeah, put you in touch. All right. All right. Amazing.
[24:16]All right. Thanks. Go ahead. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time
[24:22]to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to
[24:27]Read Books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and
[24:33]meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan. In fact,
[24:37]texture sound for the sound editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing
[24:42]this fantastic intro and out trim music.