Charmaine Wilkerson, GOOD DIRT: A Novel
[0:00]Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Book to Zibi.
[0:06]Formerly, moms don't have time to read books.
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[0:45]Charmaine Wilkerson is the New York Times best-selling author of Black Cake, which was
[0:49]named A Read With Jenna Book Club Pick and adapted as a Hulu streaming series by Oprah Winfrey
[0:54]and Capital Entertainment.
[0:55]By the way, I loved it.
[0:57]She is an American writer who has lived in Jamaica and Italy, a graduate of Barnard
[1:01]College and Stanford University.
[1:03]She is a former journalist whose award-winning short fiction has appeared in various magazines
[1:07]and anthologies.
[1:08]Welcome, Charmaine.
[1:09]I'm so excited to have you back on my show to talk about Good Dirt, having already discussed
[1:15]Black Cake, and now I get to talk to you about yet another fabulous book of yours.
[1:19]Congratulations.
[1:20]Thank you.
[1:21]It's great to see you and thanks for taking time to read the book.
[1:24]Of course.
[1:25]I loved this book, not only because of the plot and the emotions of all the characters and
[1:30]the language and all that, but also I learned a lot and I love books where I come away
[1:36]like fascinated and like pouring over all of your sources at the end and being inspired
[1:41]to like go to museums to see what you're talking about, like I learned so much.
[1:46]So for that reason too, all of it, it was really wonderful.
[1:50]Right.
[1:51]Thank you.
[1:52]You know, it's interesting because I learned a lot too.
[1:54]I continue to write mostly from a point of emotion or a question I may have or maybe
[2:01]an image pops into my head and that's how the story of Eby Freeman, the protagonist in
[2:07]the present day, began.
[2:08]But as I thought, okay, what is she doing on the Connecticut coast when her family comes
[2:13]from Massachusetts, you know, what would be the story of the jar that fell because that
[2:20]came to me right away.
[2:21]I did research and I too learned a lot.
[2:25]Amazing.
[2:26]So why don't probably, I've confused everybody listening.
[2:28]Okay, tell us about what we're talking about.
[2:31]What is your book about?
[2:33]What jar?
[2:34]What did we learn about?
[2:35]Go ahead.
[2:36]So I like to tell people a really short version of my story is this is the story of a woman
[2:41]from Connecticut who decides to run away from home.
[2:45]She runs off to France for a few months because she feels the need to distance herself
[2:50]from very painful memories from her past.
[2:54]She survived a childhood tragedy that led to the death of her brother and to the destruction
[3:00]of a beloved family heirloom that holds a great deal of symbolism for them as a family.
[3:07]And more recently, just when she thought, you know, life was pretty good.
[3:13]It's getting better even though she lives with this terrible loss.
[3:18]She's about to be married and the romance falls apart in a very public and humiliating
[3:25]way.
[3:26]And so that was part of her motivation at some point.
[3:28]She says, I can't do this.
[3:29]I can't stay where I know people, where people may know me.
[3:34]So she takes off for France and instantly feels better.
[3:38]She's in this small community, no one knows who she is, no one cares.
[3:43]Very quickly, her past catches up with her and there and begins her life lesson.
[3:49]She really needs to think, how does she get away from her past?
[3:53]Maybe she can't.
[3:55]So how does she find a new way to sort of live with all of the difficult things that
[4:00]have happened to her?
[4:02]And at the same time find a way to thrive, so that's her challenge.
[4:07]And what we learn is that part of who she is is going to be in the past, the story
[4:13]of her family, the story of the heirloom that was destroyed, the story of her and her brother.
[4:20]She lost her brother, but they had a relationship.
[4:23]He was part of her life.
[4:25]Well, well, the way that you tell the story from so many different viewpoints, technically
[4:33]is quite impressive as well, because we don't just hear Abby's story from Abby's point
[4:38]of view.
[4:39]We jump all around, sometimes people get one short chapter and then we never see them again
[4:44]and it just serves a purpose.
[4:46]But immediately we're taking into somebody else's point of view, which of course is the
[4:51]whole goal of fiction.
[4:52]Anyway, right?
[4:53]We have to inhabit other people's experiences and points of view.
[4:57]But in, we see her neighbors and she's a child.
[5:01]We see friends and friends.
[5:03]We see the new girlfriend, I mean, we get the whole range.
[5:07]And then the most, well, not the most, but the most technically an amazing thing you pull
[5:12]off is that you also trace her ancestors through the slave trade coming to the U.S., their
[5:20]love of language, how all of their lives intersects, their losses.
[5:26]And then it leads us to the present day and all culminates in this one jar of symbolism
[5:32]that, of course, shatters right in the beginning and is on your cover and all of the rest.
[5:36]So it's almost like, how did you pull all of these different threads together and not
[5:43]confuse the reader?
[5:44]Like, how did you do this and did you know that you were going to tell the story from so
[5:48]many?
[5:49]It's almost like the shards of the jar itself, right?
[5:52]We have to piece it all together.
[5:54]So going to your first question, how one part is, I think, part of it tends to come
[6:00]naturally to me and it's a bit of a blur.
[6:05]The other parts of the answer are, you know, technology is my friend in this case.
[6:10]I put things into files.
[6:12]Oh, you know, there's Zibi's story.
[6:15]And then here's something from the point of view of Zibi's dog.
[6:18]And then, you know, and so it does help one I've written something, a scene comes to
[6:23]me, a person comes to me and I put it in a file because it does help.
[6:29]I step away.
[6:30]And then the third answer is, you know, the research really helped.
[6:34]I did research, again, I filed that away.
[6:37]But what happens is our mind creates a kind of room, at least my mind creates a kind of room
[6:44]or sometimes I describe it as a wheel in which I can see that entire fictional world.
[6:50]And there are things missing.
[6:52]So maybe I'm missing research or maybe I'm not really sure what's going to happen with
[6:57]Ebby and her ex or Ebby and the new guy she meets or with her parents in the past, but
[7:04]I have a general idea.
[7:06]And for me, it's like walking into a room with a bunch of people and bit by bit I get
[7:11]to know their stories, but they're all sitting there in the room with me.
[7:14]They're all in my field of vision.
[7:16]So I think that's what I mean by the blur, Zibi, you know, each one of us does have a different
[7:21]kind of mind.
[7:22]We know this now that we each think differently.
[7:25]And so this is something that comes pretty naturally to me.
[7:29]Now there is no guarantee that this does not confuse people because, you know, each book
[7:34]brings a different kind of dimension to storytelling.
[7:38]And some people aren't into the jump all over the place, kind of book.
[7:42]Other people are, it all depends.
[7:44]But for me, again, it's like I walk into a room or I'm walking down the street and
[7:50]I see a number of people and each story from each person enters into my field of imagination
[7:58]or my field of vision, it's all there.
[8:01]So the research was interesting because I knew from the very first page that a terrible
[8:08]thing had happened in this beautiful home with this loving family, these strangers enter
[8:14]this family's home.
[8:16]We don't know who they are.
[8:18]There's a tussle, this beloved family, Erlen breaks, and this little girl's brother ends
[8:24]up dead.
[8:25]And so we meet Abby Freeman on the worst day of her life.
[8:29]And she is forced to grow up with all of these people saying, oh, it's that little girl,
[8:34]you know.
[8:35]It's that little girl.
[8:36]They all know her story.
[8:37]So part of her struggle when she's a young woman, even though she comes from a well-off
[8:43]family, she has no material needs, she's got a good education, she has an interesting
[8:48]job and she's fallen in love.
[8:51]Even then, the struggle for her is she doesn't get the chance to, you know, muddle
[8:56]through life without somehow being watched or without worrying that her parents would
[9:01]be terribly terribly worried themselves about her and for her.
[9:07]So that's kind of her identity that's been imposed on her.
[9:11]And you know, I'm interested in the, the power that stories have to shape our identities.
[9:16]And so their Abby is struggling with one story of who she is.
[9:21]And I think that her journey will involve finding a way to rewrite that story.
[9:26]She can't not be that little girl.
[9:29]She cannot.
[9:30]But how does she rewrite the story of her identity?
[9:33]Well, part of that may lay in the past and the stories from the past.
[9:38]Well, I mean, we even see her as she's changing her hair throughout the whole book and how
[9:45]we end with her resolution of what she's doing with her hair in the future and getting
[9:50]back to basics.
[9:51]You know, one of the many themes is recovering from trauma.
[9:55]And what does that mean?
[9:56]Can you ever really quote recover?
[9:58]It becomes a part of you and you have to just.
[10:00]sort of synthesize it with everything else.
[10:01]And she has this one moment where she pulls out
[10:05]as is alarm clock.
[10:06]And she reflects back onto her ex Henry
[10:10]and how when she would pull it out,
[10:12]he was like, why do you have to do that?
[10:14]And aren't you over a DNA therapist with a,
[10:17]and she's like, you don't get over.
[10:19]Like, people can help you through it.
[10:21]But it stays with you.
[10:23]And how nice that I can pull out this alarm clock.
[10:25]And I feel like the alarm clock and the jug
[10:29]and all of these symbols are what we,
[10:32]the tangible things we can take with us when everything else
[10:35]is so when life itself is a femoral.
[10:38]I know that you from your wonderful writing
[10:41]know all too well about finding a way forward.
[10:45]Thank you.
[10:46]After trauma, and we say after trauma,
[10:48]and you know, you raised an issue that for me
[10:50]is a bit of a pet peeve, you say recover from.
[10:54]In fact, I don't like words like get over,
[10:58]or even the phrase move on.
[11:00]I do like the idea of moving forward
[11:03]because we can move forward even with the pain
[11:08]that we must carry and moving forward may bring us joy,
[11:12]may bring us satisfaction,
[11:14]may bring us other kinds of fulfillment or advantages,
[11:18]but somehow we may need to carry that pain with us.
[11:21]It becomes part of what we have lived.
[11:24]So this family heirloom, you know,
[11:27]we're talking so much about the idea of trauma or loss
[11:30]or healing.
[11:31]And one of the things about the story
[11:34]is I actually had fun writing this story,
[11:36]not only because of the research into elements
[11:38]from history like black seafarers sailing up and down
[11:42]the coast of North America,
[11:43]even when many people were still enslaved,
[11:46]or the teams of pottery makers,
[11:50]again, they were enslaved,
[11:52]but they were skilled pottery makers
[11:55]and one of them creates the family heirloom,
[11:58]the in the American South that ends up in New England.
[12:02]The story of how that jar ends up in New England
[12:05]is pretty much the main part of the story from the past.
[12:09]But I had fun with it because, you know,
[12:11]this jar is a huge symbol for the family.
[12:14]You talk about objects.
[12:16]If someone else walks into their home,
[12:18]they see this big old brown jar
[12:21]and they might not think of it as being special,
[12:24]because this is a family that is well off enough
[12:26]that they could own something that's pre-Columbian,
[12:30]or they could own a beautiful,
[12:32]a delicately painted jar from centuries ago from China,
[12:37]but instead they've got this big old jar, it's old,
[12:40]but it's only about six generations old.
[12:44]And what makes it special is the idea
[12:46]that there is nothing tangible
[12:48]without the intangible.
[12:50]Not when we're talking about emotions, identity,
[12:53]heritage, culture.
[12:56]It's the story that surrounds the jar,
[12:59]or I should say, the many stories
[13:02]that surround the jar that really give it meaning.
[13:05]And the jar also has a secret.
[13:07]And you've read the book,
[13:07]so you know what the secret is,
[13:09]but we won't say what it is.
[13:10]And this is a secret that could have caused
[13:12]someone's life in the past.
[13:15]And in the present day,
[13:16]the family never reveal what the secret is,
[13:19]or at least they don't, as the story begins
[13:22]because it's part of them and who they are.
[13:25]And it's part of what keeps them going,
[13:27]part of what allows them to thrive
[13:29]and believe in that despite adversity,
[13:33]one can live well, you know?
[13:35]So going back to the idea of objects and family heirlooms,
[13:39]this was fun because as the stories are shared with children,
[13:45]yes, it is a story of enslavement to freedom,
[13:49]adversity to better times, impoverished lives,
[13:55]and more prosperous lives.
[13:59]And it's a symbol of difficult times to better times,
[14:03]this jar, that as it's told to children,
[14:05]it's an adventure story.
[14:07]So Ebby's father tells these stories
[14:09]that inspire her brother to draw these caricatures
[14:13]of this fat-bellied old jar on little stick legs
[14:16]as it's running down a hill
[14:18]or as it's on a sailing ship
[14:20]or as it's wearing a movie star disguise,
[14:23]you know, to hide from people.
[14:25]So the jar is a way to insert into the story of loss.
[14:31]The beauty of the family, their mercfulness,
[14:33]their playfulness, and some of the things
[14:36]that they've done in the meantime.
[14:38]Well, well, the way you wove it all together
[14:41]and the twists and turns and up till the final message,
[14:45]which, you know, gave me goosebumps, really amazing.
[14:48]Plus, you know, I mentioned this earlier,
[14:50]but you have all of these through one liners
[14:53]that stopped me in my tracks.
[14:55]And I was just like, oh wow, and they often
[14:57]and chapters, I just sort of like give a couple,
[15:02]maybe examples if I have anything.
[15:04]Let me read this one.
[15:05]Is this okay, just to read an example or two?
[15:07]Yeah.
[15:08]Well, yeah, I think it's not like a major spoiler
[15:10]like the last line of the book.
[15:11]We won't do that.
[15:12]I will not read the last line.
[15:13]This was about the brothers clock radio
[15:15]because I just love that part.
[15:16]Oh, yeah.
[15:17]We reaches for her brothers clock radio now.
[15:19]And watches this as the display flips
[15:21]from one minute to the next.
[15:22]She smiles at the thought of Baz's soupy morning voice.
[15:26]Then she watches the display for one more minute.
[15:30]She is no stranger to keeping time
[15:32]by what she has lost.
[15:34]Beautiful.
[15:35]I mean, then you have someone who,
[15:37]you weave in the 9-11 disaster as well.
[15:40]And I mean, I don't want to give it this way.
[15:42]So I'm going to just, I'll just go to the right to the end here
[15:44]of this.
[15:45]And you said, so-and-so, would have to come
[15:46]to understand what losing someone suddenly
[15:49]and violently could feel like, well, that didn't sound
[15:51]as good when I didn't read the beginning.
[15:52]But I didn't want to give it away.
[15:54]They have about this.
[15:54]Filled with people chattering in languages,
[15:56]she doesn't understand.
[15:57]She pretends to be a traveler scrolling through her mobile phone
[16:01]when all she is doing really is trying to disappear
[16:03]from herself, sort of a corollary
[16:06]to wherever you go, there you are, right?
[16:08]But those are just a couple and probably not the best.
[16:10]But at the end of most chapters,
[16:12]there is something that you're like, whoa,
[16:15]that is such a powerful way.
[16:18]So tell me about that.
[16:20]And you seem to have this very soulful,
[16:25]wise perspective on life in general
[16:28]that you give us throughout the story.
[16:31]But in these powerful, insightful lines, tell me about that.
[16:35]And where did this wisdom and perspective come from for you?
[16:39]Well, thank you.
[16:40]Some of that may very well be fictional.
[16:42]You know, when we write fiction, we borrow into ourselves
[16:47]and we find things we may not recognize
[16:50]in the rest of our lives.
[16:52]And that's what I love about fiction.
[16:54]Fiction helps me come a little closer
[16:56]to some of the difficult truths in life.
[16:59]And it helps me to explore some of the questions I have
[17:01]and maybe explore the thinking of people
[17:05]with whom I may not agree, or people who have lived lives,
[17:09]their lives differently.
[17:10]And so thank you for saying wisdom and soulful.
[17:13]I don't know.
[17:14]But you know, time does help.
[17:16]And I began this story with a question
[17:20]that is stayed with me since I was very young.
[17:23]I started working as a television news reporter
[17:26]when I was 21 after graduating from Stanford University.
[17:30]I studied communication there.
[17:33]Went out into the world to report.
[17:35]And it was very interesting.
[17:36]It's a wonderful way to get to know your community.
[17:39]But I began to recognize that very often I would walk
[17:42]into a stranger's home on the worst day of their life
[17:47]and have very difficult and intimate conversations.
[17:51]And I would go home and I would wonder, how would they manage?
[17:54]How will they do this?
[17:57]How will they find a way to move forward?
[17:59]After unspeakable loss or pain or bitterness.
[18:03]And time does help.
[18:05]Because as time went on, as I grew older,
[18:09]the story moved from being a sorrowful thing
[18:12]to a question also of amazement.
[18:16]Because people do manage.
[18:19]People do find ways.
[18:21]And I hope, as I write, Abby's story that maybe she
[18:25]will find the way.
[18:26]She's beginning as we read the story.
[18:29]And it's because there's this element of humanity,
[18:32]element of magic that we hold in ourselves,
[18:36]that we are wired for hope.
[18:40]We are wired for love.
[18:43]We are wired to laugh and play even in bleak times,
[18:50]even after unspeakable loss.
[18:54]And so that's the amazement part that I mentioned, Zibi.
[18:57]It's how do we manage?
[19:00]It becomes a question about me and everyone else.
[19:05]And so that is that thinking that led me
[19:10]to think of Abby just popped into my head one day.
[19:13]And the jar was falling and her poor brother
[19:16]was already on his way to being killed.
[19:19]And then I thought, now what?
[19:22]How will she manage?
[19:23]And what was she doing there?
[19:25]And what are they doing on the Connecticut coast?
[19:28]And that led to this story.
[19:30]But it's an exploration.
[19:31]It's not that I have any answers.
[19:34]It's that I have questions.
[19:36]And as I write, maybe in little bits and pieces,
[19:40]I reach small answers.
[19:43]I love that.
[19:44]I love that you said we are wired for hope.
[19:46]I feel like I need to put that on an Instagram slide.
[19:49]I think people need to hear that right now.
[19:51]Yeah, go up the T-shirts.
[19:53]Yeah, exactly.
[19:54]It's interesting.
[19:55]You're a journalistic point of view
[19:57]and how you have a chapter dedicated to the dispatcher.
[20:00]who took the initial call.
[20:02]I really loved that point of view
[20:03]and how even the dispatcher who takes one 911 call
[20:08]can have that so stay with her that 20 years later,
[20:13]she wants to come meet them
[20:14]and just sort of like make sure they're okay
[20:17]and that there's light in every's eyes and all of that.
[20:20]And that, you know, even after it,
[20:22]she goes and hugs her own 15-year-olds
[20:24]and that particular chapter I found extremely moving.
[20:28]I, you know, have talked to you about
[20:31]what I was thinking as a young journalist
[20:33]and how that question stayed with me.
[20:34]Well, yes, imagine the people we call the first responders.
[20:38]I think journalists may be second or third responders
[20:42]but imagine that and I kind of like that chapter too
[20:45]because I think that, you know, very often people
[20:49]who work in difficult circumstances,
[20:52]including journalists, we are trained to become, you know,
[20:55]it's not about us getting excited.
[20:57]You really don't want to call 911
[21:00]and have people, you know, panicking on the phone.
[21:03]So the people who often respond to difficult circumstances
[21:07]and help others are the most calm in their demeanor
[21:11]and their way of speaking
[21:12]and it seems as though nothing gets to them.
[21:15]And so I thought of the people who must somehow help
[21:19]to lead people through difficult emergency situations
[21:23]and how they may feel something too.
[21:27]In the case of the emergency dispatcher,
[21:29]I mean, we won't say much more,
[21:31]but it'll be a nice thing.
[21:33]It'll be a good day for her
[21:35]when she gets to that other point 20 years later
[21:39]and she'll somehow feel as though she's come full circle
[21:42]in her work and in her life.
[21:45]Amazing.
[21:46]So now that this book is coming out
[21:48]and is already a USA Today bestseller
[21:50]as of this morning when we're talking.
[21:52]What is coming next?
[21:54]I know that Black Cake was a fabulous Hulu show.
[21:57]Is this going to be a show as well?
[22:00]Are you writing a new book?
[22:01]What's on the docket for you?
[22:03]Well, it's all very early.
[22:04]This book just came out, was it a week ago or so?
[22:07]And I'm very excited.
[22:09]So we shall see what happens.
[22:11]You know, when I write the Zibi, I think first of the book,
[22:15]I just want to tell a story.
[22:18]And so there's a satisfaction in having that
[22:20]and the rest is all great.
[22:21]So we'll see.
[22:22]I'm working on, you know, I'm always writing little things
[22:25]and they may never get published.
[22:27]But I am working on something that I think is growing.
[22:29]It is another family story.
[22:31]And again, it's very different
[22:33]just as good dirt is different from Black Cake,
[22:36]but there is food involved.
[22:37]There is some food, but not necessarily cake.
[22:42]Sure.
[22:44]Me and thank you so much.
[22:45]Thank you for the book.
[22:47]Thank you for teaching me and touching,
[22:51]really touching me.
[22:52]I mean, the book was very moving.
[22:54]And I didn't mean to suggest it was all doom and gloom.
[22:57]It is not at all.
[22:58]And there's love and hope.
[22:59]And there's all of that too.
[23:00]But you certainly fit a lot in to this very moving thrill
[23:07]and captivating story.
[23:09]So anyway, thank you.
[23:09]I really, really enjoyed it.
[23:11]Thanks so much.
[23:12]It's great to see you, Zibi.
[23:13]You too.
[23:14]Thank you.
[23:15]Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibi.
[23:18]Formerly, mom's don't have time to read books.
[23:20]If you loved the show, tell a friend.
[23:22]Leave a review.
[23:24]Follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens
[23:26]and spread the word.
[23:28]Thanks so much.
[23:29]Go and buy the books.