Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:06 You're listening to writing American voices from the Caribbean, with Kaiama Glover and Tami Navarro.
Kaiama Glover 00:00:23 Hi, everyone! We are back.
Tami Navarro 00:00:25 Yes. Hi, welcome to season two of Writing Home: American voices from the Caribbean.
KG 00:00:30 I'm Kaiama Glover
TN 00:00:31 And I am Tammy Navarro.
KG 00:00:32 And by some miracle we seem to have made it, battered but not broken, into the year 2021.
TN 00:00:42 Yes, and we are excited for season two. We have some great conversations coming up and today we're having the first conversation in season two, which is with Marlon James.
Speaker 2 00:00:53 Yes, we are here in our obligatorily virtual studio with Marlon, author of John Crow's Devil, The Book of Night Women, A Brief History of Seven Killings, and then of course, most recently, Black Leopard Red Wolf. Marlon James is a celebrated writer across the world. He's been awarded the Man Booker prize, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Minnesota Book Award. I'm probably missing one or two. Um, but that's already pretty substantive list. Uh, and he is also the cohost of the podcast, Marlon and Jake Read Dead People. So this is a high stakes kind of situation because we have an actual expert podcaster in our studio and this sort of "mise en abyme" situation where the podcaster becomes podcasted. So we're really excited.
Marlon James 00:01:41 Yeah, thank you for having me, this is really great.
TN 00:01:42 We are excited to have you here. And I am just going to jump right in with my first question. We are in such a time, Marlon, that I wanted to ask you about political violence, because as I was rereading some of your work and some of which you write about right in Jamaica, in particular, a space that has been long caricatured as the primary site of political violence, some of which is based in reality and some of which just comes out of a sense of a black dangerous space, right? So it's a mix. I wanted just to hear your thoughts on everything that has been unfolding in the US under the Trump administration, in terms of political violence, maybe in relation to Jamaica, maybe not, but just kind of, what your thought are
Speaker 4 00:02:23 It's weird. I feel, oh, I've got to thank again. Thanks so much for having me. I, I feel almost sort of what's the word for, for, for doubly? triply? Triply I feel like I had- I feel like it's triply right now. I feel like I, I feel I got a triple hit. The first was when you come to America, um, as an immigrant, you have certain ideas and especially coming out of what I come out of, the background of the seventies and Jamaica was, you know, Jamaica was in Chile or Paraguay, but we had, or we had, we were pretty big and violently in the Cold War. So to see things that is storming off the Capitol gives us this weird kind of déjà vu and America is the last place we expected it. Uh, I think because to, to come here is to believe in the myth of America. And that's not always a bad thing, but it's this idea, even before it, even before the violence, I remember thinking, wow, partisanship. I had no idea that happened in America. You know, people not speaking to each other because of politics. I'm like, oh, that's how third world of you, you know, it's it's, but it, but it says something about how these stereotypes I have about what a third world country is. That's what I'm saying. It's affected me on so many levels on the level of the, the sort of feeling that this is a kind of thing that happens to other countries. And the weird thing about being in other countries is even you start to believe it, it's like, oh, that happens where I live. It doesn't happen where you live. And we start to, everybody starts to drink the Kool-Aid, you know, it's it's most of that headline from, I think it was times of India. No, it was Kenya. Who's the banana Republic. Now I thought that too. And I thought about, you know, but I also thought about, you know, the, the idea off of when you see a working example of white privilege, and one of the, the, the, the sort of hallmarks of it is the, is this inescapable belief in one's own safety, the idea that I could storm this place and with total impunity, storm it without any form of consequence and almost affronted when people suggest there should be any. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:04:50 But I'll set the validity of that belief. Yeah. So the lack of that there, right?
Speaker 4 00:04:54 It's this warning that this sort of, I, you know, I haven't lived in America long enough to know that if I go out on the street and I walk from avenue to avenue B, I could be shot by cops are sawn. It's just, it's just how it is that sort of just, just walking in, doing whatever you want without the slightest idea, that there'd be consequences as is sort of mind blowing to me, as I'm saying, it was a, such a multitude, you know, a multitude of different things. It's the idea that it had an Omar. Technically they still Mack Congresswoman, even though I live in New York, mostly, you know, I mean, she represents my district in Minnesota. George flied was skill of four blocks from my house. I'm not exaggerating when I said that could have been me. I know Minneapolis. And I'm an app is cops.
Speaker 4 00:05:47 I know I live on that street for 13 years. I know, I know it could have been me. So it's, there's no one way of looking at this week because it's not one thing that has happened. There are just so many things and it happened at the same time, but I really hope people are processing it. Um, I'm on, on Facebook, on one of my friends through things he's from red America keeps saying, we need to lead this. We need to blah, blah. You need to put up the fight. And I'm like, actually, no, I actually don't think, I think it's a 53% white woman who needs to lead that fight. You know, I think it's, it's, um, this is, it's the most shocking inevitable event I've ever seen. And there are so many ways in which as a person of color as a black person or a brown person, you saw how he never doubled. Right. You know, it was where else was this going? You know, where rose was just going to go,
Speaker 1 00:06:46 But I really appreciate your, I appreciate your putting those two things. Intention, your experience in Jamaica as sort of like, this is how it is, this is how we are, right. This is the reputation we have. And you sort of begin to internalize that and to see the cracks, the fissures in which people of color have all lived and known and been aware of since forever. But to see it actually unfolding in such a large scale way across the Trump administration has been really jarring.
Speaker 4 00:07:15 Yeah, it is. It's I do hope there is, there is a reckoning and not just the impeachment, but that we, we, we it's, we recognize that. What, what, uh, what I can, sir, it is white supremacy and that it affects it. If it's affecting, you know, it affects everything. There's nothing good. That's going to come out of this.
Speaker 2 00:07:40 W we, we set up for these conversations and we have like some questions we know we want to ask you, but then inevitably the person we're talking to says something super smart and like swerve. And I want to pick up on some of the things you said, and, and in this way, move from politics into the space of writing, which of course is inflected enormously by politics, but had a couple of things there about the myth of America and the stereotypes about the third, the so-called third world. And I think a lot about, I write about you, I write about your work. And I think a lot about it's critical reception, popular resection, academic reception, and I constantly find myself or often find myself surprised or shocked in responses to your work that sort of bring up issues of your responsibility around representation of Jamaica, given that exact conundrum, given the myth of the land of the free, you know, this place that you have literally landed where you are employed, where you enjoy great success, where you teach American kids, right. And the darkness and the danger of Jamaica. Right. And sort of the notion that I think is common among writers from the, again, the so-called global south that, you know, how dare you air our dirty laundry, how dare you let these white people know about the rough things that are happening to us at home. So it's an open-ended question, but I just, I'm wondering, and I often wonder what measure of responsibility do you, do you take on, do you internalize either from the get-go or in response to those reactions? Yeah.
Speaker 4 00:09:16 Yeah. It, it reminds of a, an essay Edwidge Danticat wrote about in there in her book create dangerously when she was talking about being accused Haitians, accusing her off, showing all these terrible pictures of Haiti and Haitian men and blah, blah, blah, and so on. And it remains me also off, back in the back in the seventies, you know, a lot of men in the black arts movement took really big issues with books like the woman who REO and color purple. And the idea was that black woman, brown woman, woman of color were conspiring with white liberal elite to demonize black men. And I talk about it in my lit class. It's always a fun day
Speaker 2 00:10:00 When you were ready for this question.
Speaker 4 00:10:04 But I also said, you know, I, I should bring up girl with a dragon tattoo as a, do you guys know what the original title for that book is? And if you watched the original Swedish films, you see what it's called? Golden dragon tattoo is an Americanism. The book is called men who hate women. Wow. And if you watch the, the, the Swedish film, the title comes up, it doesn't come up. Girl, Jerry comes up in Swedish men who hate women though, where I'm going with this is that Larson. Wasn't afraid to show the sort of less deep, you know, the bad stuff. The cancer is the things that we need to get over because he saw so still speaking truth. And I think that what's, he also believes, I think that Sweden is even greater than that, that we can, we can brace ourselves for hard truths and still grow and get better and learn. I mean, I'm not saying I'm teaching anybody able to Jamaica, but I'm also saying that as a writer, you still have to be a Truett speaker. That doesn't mean I'm spearing facts necessarily. You know, I'm also, there's this idea, I think, and I do think it's a very colonial impulse that if you're from our country, you're automatically a member of the tourist board. And that even if you're going to an interview, even if you, if you, if there's dirty laundry, you whispered to somebody
Speaker 3 00:11:27 In starts out aren't you over here
Speaker 4 00:11:29 As opposed to, and I think there is a difference. I think there is, if that was all I was interested in showing, then it would have been a different kind of book. And I think, I think people like me or ad week or Genova writing different kinds, different kinds of what can I do? And if they'd be very good, because there w we can, you can, you know, there are examples of books that show case only one side, there's a book on Jamaica called the dead yard. And I actually quite liked that book and I liked the author, but it was interesting to me that the only Jamaica is in it was plantation and ghetto. And to me, that kind of picture, maybe more distorting, that means us talking about the lives of gone men. And I thought about it when I was writing that novel, I was like, you know, people always talk about Jamaica, Valens, and here, my writing as protagonists, the people behind the actual violence, what am I doing?
Speaker 4 00:12:29 And then I realized it's not a subject matter. That's the problem. It's the lack of complication. It's a lack of complexity. That's a problem. I don't have a problem if you want to ride the most serial killers, if you bring complexity to it. And I think sometimes that's what people don't get when we're offended. I am far, you know, when, when the sort of really, really beautiful Savage is really it's as bad as a really, really horrible Savage, you know, the one dimensional hero is, you know, it's, it's, it's as bad. I'm not gonna write a novel populated by let's look at the Jamaican version of magical Negro. Uh, we, we, we, that's what Clara's heart is for. Um, it's it's yeah. I, I think that, to me, it's, it's that kind of acquisition would have more weight if it says, you know, like what Chimamanda Adichie says, if that's a single story. And the thing is what I wanted to get with, even with that novel is even within so-called crime, even within so-called these people, there is still complexity. One of my characters, Josie wheels commit some of the most brutal atrocities in that book. And yet I cannot fight
Speaker 2 00:13:42 Developed in that complexity. Yeah, for sure. And,
Speaker 4 00:13:45 And I'm also as a writer, interested in empathy with very complicated people who had don't want to empathize with, honestly, the truth is actually don't approve of most of my characters and I fight them sometimes. Uh it's it's, you know, the book I wrote before it is wicked from that woman. And at one point why the character has to choose between she had to choose between their own sister and our horrible dad, and she chooses daddy, and that was screaming, whatever it was it though. It's yeah, I think that the bigger, I am more concerned if we keep perpetuating caricatures of the Caribbean character does of, of nice beaches and beautiful people and people fall for it, there was this commercial ones where it is tourists are coming to this Jamaica and resort and the Jamaica and see them. And they just immediately that they took, they hit the books that took away the chest, the blah, blah, blah. They took away everything that pull up the regular music to put such and such and go, Hey man, welcome to the Jamaica. Come on. I thought it was Jamaicans were so offended because like, what's wrong with our beaches, aren't making music and that's not the point. So it, to me, I sometimes find that kind of got, is such a long-winded answer. Um, that it's, it seems it almost to me seems to be against complexity so much as against negativity to me,
Speaker 2 00:15:15 I would just note that it's funny that in your, your, like your first response, your gift, the first example you gave, and this struck me was an example of this Swedish writer to write this conduct. And it immediately made me think, well, there there's the white privilege. Right. That's what we're talking about because Sweden has the benefit of the doubt to make it just not in the global cultural market. So I think, you know, I'm happy about getting to this notion of complexity because it's
Speaker 1 00:15:42 Jamaican book that came out called men who hate women, I think would be really differently received than
Speaker 4 00:15:49 Precisely. Yeah. Yeah. Because, and I'm also aware of that as well, because I think there has been, I think on the other side, there are people who think I will be a gleeful, a participant in demonizing, Jamaica, for example, whenever sexuality comes up. I remember when I, when I won the Booker daily mail actually sort of dispatched writers to Jamaica, kind of wanted to get the insights story off, where was a homophobic mob that brought him near death, why he has to flee as I, I fed because I got a job was this before or after the times article before. Okay. After I cut a book covers after the times article, but even in the times article, it's so clear that what I am, what I'm experiencing is such a deeply internal struggle, which is really no different from a lot of kids on the streets in New York right now. And so on. It's such a, you know, the funny thing is I ran into, uh, another, uh, Jamaica, queer Jamaican just eight years younger than me. And he said to me, you know, Marlin, I really, really respected her as a girl, but I didn't. I identified a single thing in it.
Speaker 4 00:17:01 And it's true because I went back to Jamaica and I went and met. The, the, the university of Houston is queer queer students association, which I was amazing, even existed. And I came there with may, it gets better speech. And you're like, where are you going with that crap? You don't want to hear that. We don't want to hear that. Do you know Beyonce?
Speaker 3 00:17:23 Wow. Mommy
Speaker 4 00:17:25 To tears. I'm like, because here's a generation of queer Jamaican kids who refuse to give up the very, give up quite frankly, the right to be kids and the right to only care about Beyonce. I saw it. I never joined as Sarnoff. You know, let's demonize the country. People like your country. So homophobic I'm like this one was homophobic based on earth. And like, I had no idea where you became Rochelle.
Speaker 2 00:17:55 Gotcha. Any part of the U S south, for example, because one
Speaker 4 00:18:00 Thing is iPhone traveling, a roam to all sorts of black cultures is the ways in which we allow ourselves to accept, like Jeremy Harris is splitting Marcos. And so you could have sweet. And he's talking about how the community knew he was the gay kid. They called it. Oh, Marcus, he's sweet. And it got to the point and you see this in communities of color. Yes. He's the gay guy, but he's Oregon guy is like mad at a tone drunk, but he's always drunk. And that was one of the things I've seen. I've seen it in insult Africa. I've seen it in Jamaica. I've seen it. I've seen it everywhere. The country is not the country. Doesn't have these elements, but the capacity to build two to two and two, what am I saying to sort of almost embrace in a certain way. And, and, and, and I interviewed him, Amanda did share about this actually, because of course, I'm going to bring it up.
Speaker 4 00:18:56 And she says, you know, when I was growing up, everybody know that you aren't stone, the street, you know, everybody knew who they were. It doesn't mean necessarily they're coming to the christening, but everybody knew that if they were to leave the village, the village will fall apart. And, and, and, and, and it would go on and we'd talked a lot about, you know, invalidated charities and so on. And so we don't have to go all into that, but just that I refuse to join that reductive conversation. And I think on the other side, because I show the ills of society, they think that's all I talk about. And I think I read it, I'm ready to jump in and enlist, demonize this to get. I'm like, no, I'm not in that. I'm not in that with you. That's not what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 00:19:36 So you're neither on the tourist board, nor are you trying to throw Jamaica under the bus? No. Good. Yeah. No, I think that kind of complexity is really what's missing in so much of Caribbean literature and what is revered and promoted as Caribbean literature, right. That people are often looking for one kind of representation. And that is not,
Speaker 4 00:20:00 It's not, I think that's both us happening in at the same time. Like one of the things that's happening now, uh, quite a bit is, is opening up off of queer Caribbean life with so many writers, you know, so many writers, um, tackling that. I think the rush to sort of paint on in one picture off of Caribbean of the Caribbean happens in both. I remember when in Minneapolis and back when I used to start more fights on Facebook, and I said, you know, don't get this twisted. I run into far more racism in the gay community than homophobia in the black. And did I what say like, yeah, but I bring receipts to everybody. So let's talk about this situation when this here thing happened and saw it's, it's a tagline. It's I, you know, I think ultimately though, if the portrait you're showing off a person of a place is incredibly complicated, Eva, then that to me is the ultimate sign that you're taking that country seriously. It's, it's the greeting card, or to sort of see the, the, the sort of travel advisory, if you're on either side of those. I think you're ultimately, you're both doing the same thing, which is subpoena sort of caricature. I do
Speaker 1 00:21:23 That is helpful in bringing me to a question I wanted to ask you earlier, you invoked your book book of night women, and I wanted to ask you about, it's a more internal question, kind of the costs of teaching, writing about trauma, because a lot of your work has engaged in the trauma of the region both past and present. And I wonder, you know, we've talked about the need for complexity. So you don't tell stories that are about slavery set only in the plantation. There's no other escape for black life. Um, but you do right. And I imagine teach about writing through trauma. And so I wonder what your approach is to that both as a writer and a teacher,
Speaker 4 00:22:00 As a, as a writer. I think I have to imagine myself as being just the most honest and open journalist that I can be. I, you know, I'm pretty unflinching, but also have to be human. People are surprised sometimes that there's humor in my books. I was like, you know, well, people, even people at the worst time still laugh also any, any, any Jamaican would either laugh or you're Cray. Yeah. And I know even when writing that there will be, and you can, I mean, you can tell for a minute, just go on, scroll through Amazon enough that regardless of what I do, people still think something went too far, too far to violence, to fire, to sex too, to whatever. And it's not an, it's not an argument I engage from, which I take very seriously because I always said, listen, I get it reading about slavery is hard for you. It's probably a little easier than being a slave.
Speaker 4 00:23:02 Um, my worry about Booker from that woman was that I was, I was that I had on the kid gloves. If you're, if you spend some time reading about his slavery and not even a history books, reading things like ship logs and overseers documents, you realize what an, what an astonishingly awful atrocity he was writing. But teaching though is interesting because I teach, I teach, I teach 19 to 21 year olds and I teach non-fiction and I teach a memoir class. And a lot of times these students are in the class that I want to process trauma and you're faced with two things, helping them write about it, but also helping them read it, helping them. What do you do as a reader of trauma? I'm 19, I'm air ready for this. And it's, it's the first thing I have to convince my students is on one hand, you know, there's not two different things.
Speaker 4 00:24:01 One, this is a safe space to say anything. I don't think anything should leave this room. If we're going to, if, if, if this is going to be, uh, if we're telling true stories, but I also think you have to leave this leave space for figuring things out. It's it's some of my favorite essays are essays where they actually doing what an essay is supposed to do, which it's the find to search, you know, an essay. The original mean of SME is an attempt. And I think it's that it's the give is, is you have to give students, you have, as a teacher, you have to give a huge space for people to make mistakes. And you also have to spend a really long time teaching writers, older, listen, and, and teaching writers how to read. And sometimes that means following up after somebody makes a comment, I'm like, let me tell you all the reasons why that didn't go so well in class and, and you know, and so on.
Speaker 4 00:25:00 And, and at the same time, teaching them to not necessarily hold back, but it's, it's a judgment call. It's a judgment call that every situation is different and that's the mess up. I still remember at the time I thought I was going perfectly fine and teaching a class and it was so on. And one of my students never, never, I'll never forget. The student asked to meet with me and sat down and said to me, do you have any idea through the course of the day within the TV shows radios books, how often I have to deal with people, attaching mental illness with violence and mental illness with atrocity, the serial killer. He must be crazy, this such and such. How did he do it? He must be crazy as a mentally ill person. You know how often I have to deal with that fact that people think we're always on the, you know, on the edge of vantage, because of all this stuff, including some of the stories in this class and us did that became something which I know see at the beginning of every class, I'm like, let's talk about mental illness and let's talk about some of these stories.
Speaker 4 00:26:05 I'm telling the reason why I no longer watch criminal minds because it's it's yeah, it's that it never, it never occurred to me, but I think it's again, allowing, letting students know that there's that one that can see things that add to their professor and, and, and so on, but it is, it is a case by case basis. And it's also recognizing that there are people out there for whatever reasons, sometimes not grit think you're going to.
Speaker 5 00:26:36 Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2 00:26:39 I know I've said to a few people about night women, you know, trying to about slavery in the Americas sometimes feels like trying to imagine what's on the other side of the end of the universe. It's like a thing that if you get too close, you realize how much it would screw with your mind to think it all the way through. And, and reading that book in particular, I was like, wow. He went really, really close to that space and dwelled in it with these people for however long, it took him to generate the truth of that novel. And, and I must so painful to have done that in a sense and traumatized, certainly it was.
Speaker 4 00:27:16 And I paid for it. I remember midway, I was writing, I was writing this book and I was reading it at, uh, it was, it was actually the AWP, the, the creative writer and writing teachers conference. And I read it as part of the showcase and somebody, you know, a white person asked the one question you should never have asked me, why the hell are you writing this book? And I said, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll reel, but the idea still is sort sort-of why are you, why did you think, why are you offending me with this? Like, I don't want to hear this, but I went to Clemson when I went to Clemson university, I heard that some students opted out of reading the book, which is the first time I ever heard of such a thing. But anyway, and I, and this is meta I'm reading.
Speaker 4 00:28:10 I'm like needy periods, a lot of atrocities. And I said, well, you know, because I think as a writer and, uh, somebody, you know, writing about what I'm writing about, I should also make sure you MFA has never, ever forget this. And, and then I said, I know I'll wait for my favorite sound in the world and nervous sweat laughter as, but afterwards, I was like, I need help because I was being consumed. I was being consumed by so much atrocity and so much the, the, the 'cause, if you're gonna, if you're going to write any form of historical fiction, you can't just read the histories and assign, you have to be there. And I it's water reasons way, you know, just any snide remark, including stuff Kanye said about slaves and ridges me. I'm like, if you have, I'm like, you don't have one 10th, the stuff they have to have gotten to the point where you are born as I, if you have, and the fact that we're here, you know, I was like, it's like, no, don't you disrespect?
Speaker 4 00:29:26 Like, no, don't you disrespect? No it's um, but it was, it was, it is, it is at a whole, this doesn't feel people who are presently going through trauma, feel it I'm I'm, I'm not taking it seriously, but I do think you are, you go through trauma. And I think part of it too, is I want things to know things. I phoned just visiting the diaspora I've as citing Nigeria site in Brazil, I seen in Jamaica, black people process things in a continuum. And I think sometimes when you're not black, you don't understand why you're talking ditto, Addison, while we're talking about something using present tense. It's like, but that's 400 years ago. I was like, you know, on a sunblock continuum also. I mean, you could go into a whole with process time, but that's a whole other thing, but no, it's, it's, it's, it's real, it's real trauma. And nobody needs to be told that trauma is in China can be inherited in Jamaica. One of the things, it hasn't appeared in my books, but it's something I talk about all the time and I can Jamaica, you don't need white people, everyone to practice white supremacy.
Speaker 4 00:30:36 It's it's, I'm like, dude, you literally went out looking for a light skinned girlfriend it's baked in. Now it is. But yeah, but it is, it is there it's you can't, I don't think you can emerge from that thing unscathed. And I don't think book it's weird. I put them in, never wants to go back to it, but I'm pretty sure it will come. That woman will not be the last book I write about slavery, even knowing the costs. I think so. But then I think it's, it's I, I said this in some interviews back then, it is the most, it is the most what I said. I said something like it's, it's the most talked about unspoken story and it's it's and I think, yeah, I think there are things about it, aspects about it. We, we, we, we still don't know. And haven't come to terms that, and I think you were talking about American slavery before and, and, and why were you just wearing a rule book of night? Women was that I was very interested in Caribbean slavery and the dynamics on what that left, left with us. If you're in a country where, because of sheer numbers, Jim Crow, couldn't happen, then what do you do to keep Jim cruise style alive? Then, then you say things like, oh, it's not racist class.
Speaker 4 00:31:58 And which immigrants love to say, yeah, it's not racist, but of course the thing that, because colonialism taught us that, and then we go to England and see no blacks, no Jews, no Arish. And we go, oh, dammit, no black people could. That don't mean no Jamaicans. And we don't, you know, we don't get it.
Speaker 2 00:32:25 We've talked specifically about seven killings. And about night, when can you put them into, into the, the corporates? Because, you know, from John crow's devil to black leopard red tiger. Yes. Leopard red tag, red bull knew I was going to miss
Speaker 3 00:32:46 Also a fully different animal, but not nonetheless, you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2 00:32:52 The variety, the generic variety, right? The variety in terms of the places you go, but also the genres that interest you, I don't know how to characterize John crow's devil, which is like pure emotion and situated power and sexuality and music and, and all of these things. But then you bring us to this historical fiction that has us in the vernacular, living in Jamaica in the late 18th century, then into, you know, a sweeping history of the contemporary moment. And now we're in the realm of science fiction. And apparently this is one of what's projected to be three, meaning we're going to dwell there with you for awhile. Can you, can you weave the thread through the Corpus in some way for us like, well, where's the Marlins names and all of this.
Speaker 4 00:33:41 Well, first I'd say there is a thread. Would you say people think get them making these sort of wild shifts in storytelling and it's too, I guess,
Speaker 2 00:33:49 Give it to me. I'm sure. I know.
Speaker 4 00:33:52 You know, I, I think, I mean, yes, I do get bored pretty quick. And, uh, and, and the list of books on my bed in my desk that will never be published will always be bigger than the list of books they get published. But for me there, because I, I didn't funny enough, I didn't think about it. I didn't think there's a threat until I read his article with ASB where she talks about each book prepares her for the next book. I never thought about that until I go, oh yeah, because the first novel I wrote, I was playing our own with vernacular, but I couldn't step into it because I still am ashamed of it. And, and even, uh, even the first, the first 45 pages of book of night, women were written in very Jane Austen, English, which I was very pro enough because I love Jane Austin.
Speaker 4 00:34:41 And, uh, but it was going nowhere, but it says something that, that was my default position. And I really read English because I'm not very good at it. And you know, I'm very managed on the English always comes across stilted and colonial. I just, I keep trying and I keep feeling, but it's, it's what John crow's devil allowed me to do was to develop the courage, to tell a story in the voice, off the person from that time in a voice that, you know, that the, the voice coming out of my mouth could be the voice. I could tell a story, but to me, you know, in a lot of ways for me, you know, um, my, my first publisher says, I have this weird kind of this Mo this morphine would my books. Cause I think I'm writing. I think I'm writing big best-selling books that everybody's going to read and what come to that woman, you know, the, the, because go back into it to me is, was me trying to write a classic novel.
Speaker 4 00:35:40 I don't mean casting in terms of great, I mean, costly in terms of Victorian and, uh, it's, it's, it's an arc. It has a very specific structure and so on. And it made me wonder, well, what do I, what ho how do I write a novel where I sort of let go of all of that, you know, with brief history, some of it was a huge of, it was inspired by cinder, whatever I was writing, reading at the time. Like I can, I know which parts of that book I was reading Savage detectives. I know which parts of that book I was reading. Mrs. Dalloway and it's it's. And I think, yeah, and, and, and writing that book, of course, thinking about being in the diaspora and thinking about stuff I've always wanted to write and stuff I've always wanted to read and fantasy, and sci-fi has always been, you know, my favorite genre is fantasy and crime.
Speaker 4 00:36:34 And to me, briefest too, is kind of a crime novel. Yeah. But it's, it made me think about myths and mythologies. And I give this lecture last year, no two years ago at Oxford, um, that the total Cain lecture jar tokens have stays inviting me to give this lecture. And I talked about the main thing I talked about was mythology. And what does it mean when you grow up in a world where you take care of mythology, you can take care of mythologies for granted. And if you're a British, for example, I don't think you think about king Arthur much.
Speaker 5 00:37:06 Probably not.
Speaker 4 00:37:08 And yet king Arthur and Kamilah is crucial to British identity because as long as there's a camera, it means there was a civilized Britannia, nevermind. That Britain was the most backward and most appalling ditch water of a place when the Romans showed up. I mean, there were stunned at the backwardness and just a straight up filth and celebration of filth of Britain. But Camelot is, you know, we have nights, we have shovel, shovel, chivalry. I was going to say chauvinism, but anyway, yeah, we have all of these things, but it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a crucial part of the building block of British identity. Even if it don't realize it. So is Robin hood. Now put me into diaspora where for me grown zero slavery are grown zero. Sure. I know. And Nancy, I know Brer rabbit. I know folklore and thank God for folklore.
Speaker 4 00:38:07 So we have something I knew full clear, but I didn't know mythology. And I kept thinking if king Arthur could do these for these rich people, what were the things that we're supposed to do this for me? So black labra didn't even start out as a book is the first one that started, that didn't start out as a book. It started out as not SKUs. I was just, I just went and looking, cause I want, I said, I want my mythologies back. I want, yes, I have my aunt Nancy, but I want, I want them, I want them back. I want Sango back. I want Obatala back. And then I can thinking, but you know, if these history is mythology is religions could have done something like law of the rings. What w what could have, what could I do with these stories? And the stories started to read themselves. And the one thing to think of common threads in all of these books that I've written is that even the most realistic ones, there are things that make you question it like brief history is still the person who holds it all together is still a ghost and night woman. That, that world is never far away. And in some ways, black liberate and particularly the one I'm writing now to SQL feels like a homecoming, excuse like a homecoming to me. Oh, yeah. I mean,
Speaker 2 00:39:25 We're not supposed to ever really ask authors, who do you write for, but what you just kind of, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but you, you said, I want my mythologies backs where this moment where you said, you know, I'm writing these books for me to give myself something that's missing in the world, but then I also caught a hint of like an offering, like, right. You said, if, if the, if Camelot can do for those British people, like what, what are the things that can do for us? Right. So it seems that you are writing. Yeah.
Speaker 4 00:39:58 Or I think he can write for an audience and write for yourself. I don't think it's an either, or I think it's it's I don't have, I don't know if I have this idea of ideal reader in my, in my mind. I, what am I hold I put is the deal that I hope that the reader can encounter is I'm writing this for you, but I have to be me thing. And if you can't engage with it, that's fine. The cool thing about coming out of indie presses is that I'm used to people not engage in.
Speaker 4 00:40:39 It's like, dude, I come from setting three books, nothing can scare me, but I, but I do. I, I don't think I, I don't, I don't, when I sit down to write, I don't think who will read this, but I do think that I hope there are people out there who are interested in reading something that is that the author that is the, the, the, the, the best and the truest that the author could do at a time. And I think there are people who do respond to that. I think one of my favorite, I don't think it's online anymore. There was this chat room about night woman, few years ago, which I used to sneak into. Cause it was him. It was amazing. I was just thinking though, because one of course I love when people love on books. <inaudible>
Speaker 4 00:41:24 I think I just came in as a guest and, and the way they were talking about it as a woman would be like, girl, it wouldn't believe what they let go. And, and don't do now. It's like, it's like, I'm like, you know, I'm just fed up with that chick. And this is, yeah, they were reading it in real time. And it's like, is that they were talking about the little, it was like the worst, the best friend ever. And I was like, but that's it. It's it's it's readers, books, breeders. We'll see what's coming to life. So I do care about it. And I do care about it. It's, it's something because I'm a reader and it's, you know, it's, it's funny, like I'm reading, this is, this is a bit ma Mo admit to me it turned out Shannon that I'm only no reading Giovanni's room
Speaker 5 00:42:15 And I'm reading it now,
Speaker 2 00:42:17 If you want, we can cut that out of the recording.
Speaker 4 00:42:19 No, no, no, but I reading it, no, and I'm not mad. I could never read this book when I was 20, because I reading it and I feel so seen. And I'm like, but I don't. But there was a time when I don't want you to see me. I don't want to, I don't want you to, I don't want the jig is up. I see what you're doing kind of thing. But because I think the book is coming alive for me. I think, I think, yeah. It's, as I say, it's I think it's, you it's, it's both, it's writing the absolutely writing the novelist in your head. And I tell my students this all the time, make sure the thing that's in your head comes down in totality on the page, but also hoping, you know, people will, people will respond to it and then react to it and take it away and make it theirs. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:43:09 I need to think of you lurking about chat rooms.
Speaker 3 00:43:12 Can we get a beat on what you're reading
Speaker 4 00:43:18 Then I stopped because I'm like, yeah. Cause to spend too much time in that world, you also have to deal with the fact that people who hate you really hit you. So I had to just tell a friend of mine who, who has a new book out. I just got to start a reading. Kirk, it's a brilliant, brilliant novel, but she kept reading the reviews on some of the reviews. I'm like, you need to stop.
Speaker 5 00:43:40 Yeah, that's do hard
Speaker 4 00:43:42 Because sometimes even the really, really good ones you might, you know, you might start to think of that. That's all you're going to get.
Speaker 2 00:43:49 So was that, that kindness when you and Jake decided to do a podcast only about dead authors so that you yes,
Speaker 4 00:43:56 But actually, you know, the thing about me and Jake is that this, so this podcast happened and because Jake and I give us three minutes in a room, eventually we start fighting over a dead author and people would just, people would be passing by and just stop. I listened to us or hangers outside. Um, because like for example, I will defend Dickins to the death, even though he was a racist and have very specific Jamaican reasons to not like him, but I will defend some of his books except they become a few, which is trash. And he was the first episode was the first one on Pickens and try it. And he loves Trump and so on. And I'm a big gin Austen person. And he's like, as for me, I like books where things happen as I, you know, whereas I can quote us then. Of course, no, but it's just, we, we get into these really, really big fights, fake discussions really. And somebody individually got tired of saying, you should make a show out of this, that it just basically just brought us to two microphones under those continue doing what you've been doing. And that's, that's our history. If you're not going to shut up your matters or record it. Yes.
Speaker 2 00:45:28 Words to live by the podcast era. Yeah. We you've been generous the 15 minutes of fluffing about trying to figure out how this works and bringing your podcasts into, into this conversation. It's very much appreciated. Thank you so much for taking the time Marlin. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 00:45:46 Yes. Thank you. Thanks for joining us and being our first guest on season two, I'm honored, but we've been looking forward to this conversation. So thank you so much. Really thank you for making me
Speaker 0 00:46:02 Writing home is produced by Kiama Glover, Tammy Navarro, Rachel James and Miriam Neptune support for this podcast comes from the digital humanities center, the center for research on women, the media center and the library at Barnard college. Our music is by <inaudible> from their album D Johns and the track is three B last year.
