Fall Books 2018
11/2/18 - Readers are leaders! We talk with the authors of some of our favorite recent releases. Nicole Chung's memoir explores transracial adoption through her own experience finding her birth family. Imani Perry brings playwright Lorraine Hansberry's complicated life and relationships into focus in her recent biography. Finally, Glory Edim's Well-Read Black Girl started as a t-shirt, became a book club, events series, and now an edited collection.
Transcript below.
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CREDITS
Producer: Gina Delvac
Hosts: Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman
Theme song: Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn
Composer: Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.
Associate Producer: Destry Maria Sibley
Visual Creative Director: Kenesha Sneed
Merch Director: Caroline Knowles
Editorial Assistant: Laura Bertocci
Ad sales: Midroll
LINKS
All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung
Looking for Lorraine by Imani Perry
Well-Read Black Girl by Glory Edim
TRANSCRIPT: Fall Books 2018
[Ads]
(0:58)
Aminatou: Welcome to Call Your Girlfriend.
Ann: A podcast for long-distance besties everywhere.
Aminatou: I'm Aminatou Sow.
Ann: And I'm Ann Friedman.
Aminatou: Hey!
Ann: On this week's agenda we're talking about books.
Aminatou: Books, books, books.
Ann: We chatted with some of our favorite authors, people who have new stuff out right now, Nicole Chung, Imani Perry, and Glory Edim.
[Theme Song]
(1:50)
Ann: Hey boo, hey.
Aminatou: Hey, hey!
Ann: I'm so excited that we're talking about books and not talking about the news, I won't lie to you.
Aminatou: I know, readers are leaders. You know how I feel about this.
Ann: It's true, it's all related. It's all related. So first up I called a writer I really love, Nicole Chung, who I got to know when she was editing The Toast. Got to know her words anyway. I spoke to her for the first time for this very podcast, and now these days she's the editor and chief of Catapult Magazine which is another amazing magazine. I'm sure it's no coincidence that Nicole is also involved with that.
Anyway she has written a new memoir about trans-racial adoption and about family secrets and about identity called All You Can Ever Know. Have a listen to our convo about adoption and family and her memoir.
[Interview Starts]
Ann: Gosh, I really . . . I loved your book so, so much.
Nicole: Thank you so much for saying that.
Ann: I really, really did and I'm so happy you could make time to be on the podcast. I want to start by asking you to talk about the title and the origin of that phrase in your life.
Nicole: Sure. First of all titles are really difficult so when I was writing the proposal I think the title was probably the last thing I put in before we sent it out. Yeah, one day I kind of just let upon this phrase and the origin of it is, you know, growing up I was told so many times this is all we know about your birth parents. Maybe this is all we can ever know, because it was a closed adoption. So really we had these bare-bone facts and it seemed highly unlikely we'd ever know more than that. So I heard that so often from my adoptive parents growing up and that is really where that title came from.
Ann: And I guess for something to rise to the level of title of your memoir it obviously has to have some deeper meaning for you too. And I wonder if you could talk a little about that?
Nicole: Well I really . . . first of all I really liked the idea of the second person you. I felt it sort of brought readers in a little bit more. There was a lot of meaning and comfort honestly behind the original story I was told about my birth parents. So even though it wasn't a lot and even though for a long time I thought it really was all I'd ever know about them that story just meant so much to me. You know, that story of like my struggling immigrant birth parents who made this incredibly meaningful sacrifice because they wanted me to have a better life. Even though I know now it was so much more complicated than that -- of course, because how could it not be? -- I just took so much comfort in that familiar story for so many years.
(4:30)
And in a sense because a lot of this book is about my journey to search for and reconnect with my birth family while at the same time I was in the process of becoming a parent myself, I was pregnant with my first child when I searched. So, you know, the title is also a nod to the fact this is really . . . this is truly my pursuit of more knowledge. So it turns out there was more to know than I thought there was.
Ann: Right, and isn't there always, right . . . I really love . . . one of the things I love so much about this book, I mean I don't have any personal experience with trans-racial adoption but I like everybody have personal experience with family narratives and ingrained stories that you hear from your parents and learn to parrot back to your parents.
Nicole: Yeah.
Ann: One of the things that I . . . again not to harp on the title but one of the things that I really love about that and what you do in the book is explaining how that -- how narrative works within families. And not just your adoptive family, the family you were raised in, but your birth family. And is that something that you thought about a lot before you set out to put it down in memoir?
(5:44)
Nicole: Oh, absolutely. So much of writing this book was about sort of rewriting this classic adoption narrative that I'd been given. And of course it was just my story but it was also so similar to the stories I've heard from countless other adoptees. You know, things we were told about our placements and our adoptions and our birth parents' choices.
(6:00)
So often I think these things are said, you know, with the best of intentions and with grains of truth in them certainly but a lot of it's guesswork. So when I decided -- I reached a point, you know, in my mid- to late-20s where that basic story wasn't enough anymore. I remember it was just a really frightening thing. But one of the things that kept me going was the knowledge that this could be empowering in a sense for me. It was really a chance to rewrite my own story. So yeah, I did that with the search and I did it again really writing this book.
Ann: And how would you describe -- so for people who haven't read the book how would you describe that kind of inherited narrative that you grew up with? And maybe contrast that with the more complicated version, or the Cliffs Notes of the more complicated version I guess.
Nicole: Right, that's a good question. I mean as I mentioned before I grew up hearing the same story over and over which was my birth parents had just moved to the US from Korea like a year or two before I was born. They ran a family business. They didn't have much money. They didn't have health insurance. And so when I was born, and I was born really early, and the doctors told them there'd be a lot of complications and challenges, you know, I was told they really felt that they couldn't provide for me and so they felt adoption was the best choice, like the only choice. That was the story that I heard over and over growing up.
And there are a couple things to note about it as bare-bones as it was. First off their love for me was always stressed. You know, the fact that the adoption was really made sort of in my best interest was always stressed because my family was religious, my adoptive family. There was also this line of like God also intended us to have you. It was all like divine planning. So it wasn't just a noble choice on my birth parents' part; it was really like providence. And that was the story. That was what I heard growing up.
(7:55)
And certainly having reconnected with my birth family I learned -- I basically have a deeper, richer version of that story. I do believe that in a lot of ways they did feel adoption was their best, only choice but there were a lot of reasons for that that had nothing to do with me. Even some things that didn't have to do with their finances or my potential health complications. There were -- my birth family experienced real trauma of their own and had real challenges to face and I think, you know, certainly adoption was the best choice for me but they also felt it was the only choice for them. It was something a lot more complex.
Ann: One thing I wanted to ask you about when you talk about the story you grew up with, there's a part in the book where -- near the beginning where you're talking about the actual days surrounding your adoption, and you do it in this third person and not in the first person of the rest of the memoir. And I was wondering if you could talk about that choice a little bit because I definitely noticed a shift and I thought it was really powerful.
Nicole: I did. I actually went to third person in a few different places in the book. The chapter that you're referring to, it is early on. It's focused on my adoptive parents and it's before I entered the picture so the more I thought about it the more I really wanted to give them a chapter at least of their own perspective in the book. I'm repeating stories that I've heard all my life. You know, I'm repeating facts I double-checked with them before writing. But it was really before I entered their lives and I wanted the reader to be able to understand who my adoptive parents were and who they are, because I think you need to understand them as whole, complex people in order to understand how much they wanted to adopt. You know, how much they wanted me, how much it felt like the fulfillment of their greatest wish.
(9:42)
To understand why it was so difficult for me for so many years to imagine another family or to imagine searching for my other family I really wanted that as a place where they would be honored in the book and have like a real place, and you could see who they were without and before me.
Ann: Yeah, and I think that's really interesting because like one perspective I think on memoir is it is, you know, the writer's space to be completely -- to completely center their experience of the world, right? And to just kind of say this is how I remember it and I felt it and I saw it. And one of the things I thought was so interesting about your book is that is definitely a part of it. I mean obviously you are at the center of this story but you do a lot to prioritize the narratives of the people in your various families as well. And maybe talk a little bit about why you wanted to do that?
Nicole: I mean I think it's the job of a memoirist to show multiple characters, multiple perspectives honestly. I don't think I should be the -- obviously like everything's sort of filtered through my memories or my interpretation or what I was told even, even if it's not based on my exact memory, but I don't think I should be the only person in the book who's allowed that perspective and agency. I really felt, writing this book about the most important people in my life, I really wanted them to sort of live on the page in the same way I get to.
Ann: I know you've written about this in essays outside of the context of the memoir too but maybe you can talk a little bit about what was the catalyst for you wanting to seek out a connection with your birth family?
Nicole: Yeah, I had thought about it for years. It's funny, sometimes I think if I hadn't gotten pregnant when I did or if I'd never gotten pregnant at all maybe I wouldn't have searched. And other times I'm convinced no matter what I definitely would've searched for them. It's funny I can't even really say for sure which is true on any given day. I do know I thought about it for years and I had even done some research. You know, I sort of knew what the process would involve. The final push really happened when I got pregnant.
(11:45)
You know, I remember sitting at my first prenatal appointment talking to the midwife and I was just completely unable to answer any of her questions about like my birth history, about my medical history, about how my mother's pregnancy and birth had been, about why I was born so early. It was really scary honestly because up until that point I hadn't really had a reason to think about how my being adopted and not having access to any of that could have an impact on my child. Also it felt very important.
So it was by no means the only reason I searched but certainly one reason was to get medical history, to understand if I could, I don't know, why my birth mother went into labor so early. And, you know, if the same thing was likely to happen with me. And beyond that I think I just really wanted to have a personal history to share with my child. I assumed that they would have questions one day and they'd be questions I wouldn't be able to answer. I felt like I didn't have enough to offer them all of a sudden. And that was the first time that I really suddenly realized like there's going to be a child, like I'm not going to be alone in a sense like I have been. Like I said I think eventually I might've searched anyway but I think the reason I searched when I did is because I was pregnant with my first child.
Ann: Yeah, and it's so interesting too thinking about how you were essentially choosing to pass down a more complicated narrative than the one you were told growing up, that that's what that choice represented.
Nicole: It's true. It's true. I mean in a way that nice little fable I was told would've been a fine thing I guess to pass on but it always bothered me that it wasn't the full story or that I still had all these questions. And I'm one of those people who really thinks that like the truth is important and knowing the truth even when it's painful can be really empowering. You know, it took me a long time to get to that point in terms of my own adoption story. But I really did finally just reach this it felt like a crossroads where if I didn't actually make a choice and move forward and try -- at least try to find more answers -- I would never be able to stop wondering. I'd never be able to stop thinking about it. It just got to the point where I couldn't live with not at least trying to find out more.
(14:05)
Ann: Yeah. And I think like most things in life -- I mean maybe you can speak to this a little bit -- even the things that you went on to find out about your birth family were not answers in the clean sense, right? Like you had more information.
Nicole: Absolutely.
Ann: Yeah, maybe you can talk a little bit about that process and whether that was . . . how that felt in real-time.
Nicole: Yeah. I mean it's real life, so so often we don't get neat, tidy answers. I don't know what I was expecting. It's hard to remember what I was expecting because I've been so caught up ever since I found them in like the reality of what I found. Which has in many ways been more wonderful than I even imagined, like having this relationship with my sister is something I wouldn't have expected when I set out to find my birth parents and reconnect with them. It's been just like one of the greatest blessings of my life and it was completely unlooked for. But yeah, I think I was sort of expecting when we reconnected either what they told me would line up completely with what my adoptive parents had told me or it would be completely different. And of course the reality was somewhere in-between, right? In that fuzzy, gray area where so much of life is. But I'm still really grateful to know what I do. I still really feel like there is power in knowing and I know a lot of adoptees are unable to get more information about their birth families so I also feel it's a real privilege that I was able to find out more at all.
Ann: You know, it really . . . reading the book and the way you've kind of written about family as inseparable from race as inseparable from culture as inseparable from, you know, just like the individual messy lived experience in this world, I've really been thinking a lot about the tendency that -- like I was raised by white parents who I have to imagine are roughly the same age as your parents who are very much of that color blindness is a really good answer to racial injustice. Or like, you know, a way -- a way of kind of being in the world that is a positive corrective perhaps. And I don't know, I've been thinking a lot of how the specifics of your memoir really serve to not in a kind of argumentative, theoretical way, like it's bad to say that, but really kind of unpack what it does when that is a narrative about race. I don't know. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about not just inherited narratives in family but inherited narratives about like racial difference and the ways we talk about that. Because your parents like all of us and you and me were all raised in a culture that has certain ways of discussing race as well, in the same way families can discuss their own narratives in these over-simplified ways.
(16:55)
Nicole: Yeah, almost like myths.
Ann: Yeah.
Nicole: Yeah, I get that. That's a huge question. I will try. Growing up in my family we really didn't talk about race at all. It was not something that we ever really discussed, so when I write in the book about facing racism at school I didn't really know that's what it was. I thought of racism as something firmly entrenched in the past, something that we'd conquered largely, and something that was always violent too or a direct suppression of rights. I mean that's not how I would've phrased it as a child of course but looking back I could see . . . like I didn't have -- I was being called slurs, yes, or I'd get micro-aggressions at the grocery store, yes. But I didn't know that that was racism. Like no one ever told me that's what it was. And we honestly didn't talk about it at all. I can't remember being given . . . even the sense that like -- they never really came out and said color blindness was the way to go even. It wasn't even that explicit. They would say things in passing like "Well the way we were raised it doesn't really matter what color you are; it matters what kind of person you are." Which is I guess effectively saying the same thing as people should be colorblind. It was really more of an absence of a conversation than like a narrative that I heard over and over regarding race itself and I had to really learn how to think and learn how to talk about it and it largely didn't happen until I left home.
(18:15)
I think part of the reason we never talked about race is because I grew up in a very white area so people of color -- it's not there weren't any but we were few and far between. We were kind of invisible in some places. There was a lot of pressure to just I don't know if assimilate is the right word but it would be very hard to grow up a person of color in my area and not feel like whiteness was the default or something to aspire to even.
You know, when I was trying to like fit in I was trying to fit in with white kids because they were the only kids I saw. And that's what I thought it meant to be white was to fit in and to belong. And I remember sometimes just being really shocked when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, like I don't look like everybody else but I feel like I should look like everybody else. So where I grew up it was just there were those two things going on: it was very, very white and yeah, there was definitely that strain of like I'm a faux progressive. If we just don't talk about it and just ignore it that's the best thing. So both of those things were happening simultaneously I think. So yeah, it was a very strange thing and then it really took being out of that very white environment for several years before I was able to even begin to unpack sort of the harm it caused and the things I grew up taking for granted or not thinking about. I don't know. It's not like I've reached any firm conclusions about that except I can begin now to sort of look at some of the harm caused and some of the scars I carry. Some of the just wrong-headed views that I think I've had to work on as a result of growing up in a very white environment.
Ann: Right. What do you tell people now who kind of ask you that very blunt question of like should we adopt a child of another race? I know you talked about, you know, for years your default answer to that question. I'm wondering, I mean other than just hand them your book which I think would be an amazing response what do you -- what do you say to that question? Which I'm sure you're kind of . . . I'm sure you're dealing with some of this as you're on the road and talking about this book too.
(20:15)
Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. It's come up in a few interviews. It's been a while since an actual prospective adoptive couple asked me very bluntly "Do you think this is a good idea? Would you do this if you were us?" But when it comes up in interviews it's more like "What would you say to people who are thinking of adopting across racial lines?" So first with all the disclaimers I don't feel qualified to give a lot of parenting advice. I am a parent but I also -- yeah, I'm not like a trained counselor and all of this. But I do feel really the beginning point for any parent, regardless of if they're adopting or having biological kids or in some ways parenting kids who weren't born to them, it's just empathy. Like being able to put yourself in that child's position and imagine the world through their eyes.
And it's a very easy thing to say and a really hard thing to do. You know, I think in a way all parents struggle with it a little bit. I know I try and I fail plenty. But when you're adopting across racial lines you have to be able to look really closely at not just your family but like your neighborhood, your schools, your community, any religious organizations, your social circle. Maybe you're comfortable there. Maybe you're sure everybody would be "tolerant" or accepting of a non-white child. But if you were really bringing a child of color into your life, into your world, what would their experience be?
(21:42)
And then also I think adoptive parents have to be really aware that there's a lot more talk in adoption these days about celebrating a child's birth culture, culture of origin. There's a lot more opportunities I think for like language or food or art or dance exploration and that's all really wonderful. But at the end of the day you have to have really hard conversations too. So when your child does experience racism at school or out in the community what are you going to say? How are you going to talk to them about it? How are you going to be their best allies? Because you do, you will have to walk with them through something you have not experienced as a white person. So how are you going to equip yourself to do that?
I guess I'm kind of annoying now when people ask and I basically just come back with more questions for them, because I don't. I don't think of adoption in terms of right or wrong, at least when we're talking about individual, specific people. But I do think there's a lot of important questions that anybody who's thinking about trans-racial adoption should be able to ask themselves and answer very honestly.
Ann: Right. Last question, we talk a lot -- I mean our show is a conversation between two long-distance friends and we talk a lot about the influence of friendship on our lives. And almost everyone who we interview we ask about their best friends and the people who are really kind of part of their supportive community maybe outside the realm of family. And I'm curious about in your life who are the people who were really there for you as you worked through a lot of this stuff? I mean especially maybe in your 20s.
Nicole: That's a great question. There's so many people.
Ann: [Laughs]
Nicole: In a sense like . . . so I just had my launch at Pals in Portland which is really wonderful because I was back in my home state. I'm not from Portland but a lot of my friends have moved there and my sister is there so it felt like a hometown crowd for me. And, you know, we grew up in the same pretty white towns but we've stayed pretty close and I've been able to talk with them about all these issues. And I know for all of them racial justice and social justice are things they really care deeply about. It wasn't necessarily stuff we talked about growing up in middle school and high school but we've kind of grown up together and been able to have those conversations.
(24:00)
You know, I guess I have to mention the importance of online communities for me because not growing up in say a Korean-American community, the first Asian-American community I found -- communities I found -- were really online. I used to work at Hyphen Magazine before The Toast and that was really so important to me. It was one of the first online Asian-American communities that I was part of. And, yeah, there's also just a lot of great people that I've met again like online honestly. I kind of hate to say it, but through Twitter or The Toast or other communities. And I think especially since the election I've just been leaning really hard on those trusted groups. A lot of writers and editors, a lot of women of color, and it's just been . . . it's been like the thing keeping me sane honestly. Not just as I deal with this book and the issues that writing it brought up for me, but just moving forward, figuring out how to keep going and keep fighting. I would be nowhere without these communities so I'm really, really grateful for them.
Ann: Yeah. Staying in the complicated space requires so much support and love I feel like on all fronts.
Nicole: It really does.
Ann: Nicole thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Nicole: Ann, thank you so much for inviting me. I'm really honored. It was a lot of fun.
[Interview Ends]
[Music and Ads]
(28:00)
Aminatou: So I called up one of my favorite writers, Imani Perry, who is amazing. She's an iconic black intellectual.
Ann: Mmm, love an iconic black intellectual.
Aminatou: Listen, she has many books out right now at the same time.
Ann: Stop it.
Aminatou: That's how iconic and productive she is. But the book that I want to talk to her about is Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry. So Lorraine Hansberry is like a black radical and incredible playwright and writer who has always been in my imagination as the woman who wrote Raisin in the Sun. And what I realized is that for . . . you know how when people are sometimes so embedded in your mind you realize that you just know their name but you don't actually know a lot about their lives?
Ann: Totally. Like she's the stand-in for black genius among playwrights, right?
Aminatou: Exactly.
Ann: Yeah.
Aminatou: And I knew that she had died at the age of 35, like very, very young. And that she had this trove of plays that was unpublished and unfinished like screenplays and all sorts of various writing. But I didn't quite know a lot about her life and Imani's book blew my mind in the sense that 1) you have an incredibly capable writer who knows her way around writing a biography, who knows her way around the history and the context of the Civil Rights Movement. And then you have the amazing life of Lorraine Hansberry. And there is just something about when, like I said, the writer is incredibly capable but also is incredibly empathetic that just makes for incredible reading. And it was one of those books that you forget that you're reading hundreds and hundreds and hundreds truly of pages about somebody's life.
Ann: I love that.
(29:52)
Aminatou: And it really touched me and I think ignited something in me about thinking about the ways we qualify black women genius. And, you know, Lorraine Hansberry is somebody who like I said died very young of cancer and has this incredible legacy and it was so striking to me about how she was just taken away so -- way too soon. Like I said Imani Perry is a legendary black intellectual. She's also a scholar on race, law, literature, and African-American culture. You know, and it's no surprise that she's a professor at Princeton. And here she is and I really enjoyed our conversation.
[Interview Starts]
Aminatou: Imani, can you tell me what the inspiration behind writing this book was?
Imani: Well, I mean the inspiration behind writing the book really is Lorraine herself. She was this extraordinary woman, an intellectual, an artist. You know, the first black woman to have a play produced on Broadway but also an essayist and a fiction writer and an activist. And really just extraordinary in every way, and there hadn't been that much that had been written about her and not a full-length biography or a kind of sort of treatment of the story of her life.
And then add to that she was in so many ways at the intersection of issues that we're talking about today. She identified as a feminist. She identified as a lesbian. You know, she was really concerned with the politics of race. And so it just seemed like the time to tell her story was now.
Aminatou: In the book you actually draw a lot of parallels between Lorraine's story and how you feel connected to her. Can you talk a little bit about that?
(31:45)
Imani: Sure. You know, for me as someone who was raised on the left politically and amongst intellectuals and my dad who shared her birthday and absolutely adored Lorraine Hansberry . . .
Aminatou: That's awesome.
Imani: And other people who shared his birthday, who it was my adoptive father who was a Jewish-American communist and then, you know, my mother and I are both natives of Birmingham, Alabama. And so Lorraine's roots in the deep south, her partnership with Robert Nemiroff who was a Jewish communist and her identity as a socialist all kind of deeply resonated with my own life. And so there was always this sense of connection to her and it just, you know, kind of blossomed as I became older and I felt, you know, sort of drawn to recounting her story, not just identifying with her.
Aminatou: Yeah, you know, one of the things you explore a lot also is just the sense of restlessness that she has and just how self-critical she can be. And that's something that I identified a lot with.
Imani: Yes.
Aminatou: I had not seen especially written about a woman in this historical kind of way, so I wonder if you can talk about that a little more.
Imani: So Lorraine was interesting because she was very critical of her sense of herself as undisciplined. She always felt a sense of restlessness. She was drawn in so many different directions. She was always coming up with new projects and ideas and it resonated. I found it very moving. Also there's something about sort of acknowledging that someone who possessed such genius and was so productive was also self-critical and had moments of doubt. I just think it's a really important lesson for us because so often, particularly with iconic figures, we tell pretty, tidy stories about their achievement. But, you know, creativity is messy. Learning more about her story helped me become more patient and generous with myself which I think -- I hope it does that for readers broadly.
Aminatou: I love that. You know, there's a lot about how she critically thinks about race and class. You describe like the white moms that harass her family in Chicago, but you say what Lorraine meditated upon with some frustration was gender.
Imani: Yeah.
Aminatou: And so, you know, she's obviously a feminist but it seems like it's complicated.
Imani: Yes.
Aminatou: So I would love to hear more of what you think about that.
(34:35)
Imani: So she identifies as feminist, right? But I tried to figure out pretty early on why -- and the first question was okay, so she talks about Langston Hughes as -- he was her mentor -- as the inspiration for Raisin in the Sun, right? And the title of the play comes from his poem. But it's so clear to me that Gwendolyn Brooks was an influence and then in the community in New York she talks a lot about Dubois and Robeson but it also seemed to me Alice Childress was an influence. So I started trying to figure out well why didn't she acknowledge influences of women more explicitly? And that was really for me the pathway to trying to think through the ways in which her feminism was complicated. I mean I think part of it was that her ambition she associated with things that men did, right? And so she often saw men as models even though she deeply resisted patriarchy and male supremacy. And I think even the way in which her father really shaped her life and her ambition even though she had lots of political conflicts with him is sort of . . . in some ways it's an indication of that tension, and I think that was pretty common amongst mid-20th century feminists actually. Like ambition was so gendered that even for feminists it was a challenge to talk about women as models, although certainly Simone de Beauvoir was absolutely a very explicit role model and inspiration for her. But it was telling that she was someone who was both a feminist but also struggled with some of the same issues.
(36:25)
Aminatou: Yeah. I mean it's interesting, right? This idea that it's easier to identify with male writers or male activists because they are the model almost you know. So even when you're frustrated there's more to draw upon in that world.
Imani: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's complicated because to write about her I have this relationship of just complete adoration which is part of what sustained me through writing the book but I didn't want it to be, you know, hey geography. I didn't want it to just be uncomplicated praise. I wanted to portray her as a real person, you know?
Aminatou: Yeah. Definitely it jumps off the page. I want to discuss what you think the relationship between her restlessness and the depression and her art really was.
Imani: Yeah. It's a great question because, you know, I'm not equipped to kind of diagnose whether she suffered from clinical depression. She clearly had bouts of depression. She had bouts of depression that were attached to her illness and I was really trying to be careful not to over-read my own experience with chronic disease into those moments, you know, in her diaries and her experience. But they did resonate a lot, and I think for so many of us they resonate, right, where you know that feeling of the body betraying you and you're trying to work and you are feeling frustrated and that creates a sense of restlessness that you can't actually do the work in that moment.
(38:00)
So that was definitely something that was important to me to capture about her story and then also to paint a picture in which you could see that even in the moments of depression she holds onto this sense of hope or possibility.
Aminatou: Yeah.
Imani: And I think it's very much her politics actually. Like it's not that she's an optimistic person but I think so much of her politics were -- as a leftist were about imagining a better world, right? That that's what sustained her. So it's wonderful to sort of be able to hold onto that even in the parts of her life that, you know, were very difficult to read about or to encounter.
Aminatou: Was it overwhelming going through the archive? I imagine there's a lot of unfinished work. Like I can't imagine going through the archives of a very creative person. There's just like bits and pieces everywhere.
Imani: You know, people have different feelings about the archive. Honestly my experience is that it was joyful and more than overwhelming because there was so much that was so good that I had never seen, that's never been published.
Aminatou: Yeah.
Imani: And so it was -- one of the librarians at the Schomburg Library was teasing me that I became another member of the staff because I would just sit there all day just reading her words.
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Imani: And lots of things that I knew I wasn't going to be able to include in the book but it was great and it's so well-organized and just beautifully maintained. But I think part of the reason it didn't feel overwhelming is that I didn't write thinking this will be the final word on Lorraine Hansberry. I wrote feeling like here's an introduction. I hope there will be a whole body of work about her that follows from this. You know, it made it possible for me to let go of pieces of it for someone else to pick up.
(40:00)
Aminatou: Wow. One of the most interesting things that you write about also in the book is her relationship with Robert, her husband.
Imani: Yes.
Aminatou: But definitely -- it's definitely a romantic relationship but it's also very much like a power marriage unit type of thing.
Imani: Mm-hmm, yeah.
Aminatou: And it does get complicated between them and so how do you feel about that marriage and about him specifically after doing all that research?
Imani: It's so interesting. It's funny, for me it's analogous to read Rita Marley and Bob Marley. I always think about how Rita Marley was really responsible for Bob Marley having the legacy he has.
Aminatou: Yeah. Yeah.
Imani: And Nemiroff was similar. He really facilitated Lorraine's genius which is just remarkable for a man in the mid-20th century, particularly given that the romantic part of their relationship ended pretty early. You know, just a couple years into their marriage. And she began to have other relationships with women and they stayed best friends, but you know, that was complicated. But he continued to provide financial support, to encourage her with her writing, particularly when she would get frustrated, and he maintained the archive. He was the executor of her estate and I think in particular the work that had queer themes that he maintained them so carefully so that we have them now is just a sign of how . . . you know, how much he cared for her and what she was trying to do. So I appreciate him. I also appreciate that it had to be incredibly frustrating for her to have a husband who wasn't really a husband around all the time and she's trying to figure her life out.
(41:52)
Aminatou: Yeah. Another thing that I find really interesting is that she wrote all of this lesbian themed work under a pseudonym, Emily Jones. Why do you think that she felt the need to separate that work out?
Imani: You know, we're still talking about a period in which people are being arrested for being lesbian. You know, clubs are being raided. It is an intensely homophobic society. I mean it still is but just far more than. And then, you know, you add to it that she comes from this, you know, very prominent bourgeoisie black family that was respectable. You know, so I think that she felt like she couldn't be out but it was also really important for her to do work that spoke to the fullness of her identity and experience. I actually think it's really important that she published the work because the way that I read the archive is that she was just waiting for a time after her death for this to emerge. You know, it didn't feel like . . .
Aminatou: Wow.
Imani: A life that she was maintaining to be secretive -- secret forever.
Aminatou: Yeah. I am also fascinated by all of the drama around the production of Raisin in the Sun.
Imani: Mm-hmm.
Aminatou: I mean I love this book because there's just so much I didn't know which is the best way to read. And we celebrate so much, like Raisin in the Sun, because she was the first black playwright to have a production on Broadway.
Imani: Yeah.
Aminatou: But I didn't know that was also because Alice Childress declined to stage Trouble in Mind because she wouldn't compromise on like the politics of the theatre world.
Imani: Mm-hmm.
Aminatou: And so I feel that, you know, Lorraine Hansberry is caught in this very catch-22 kind of situation.
(43:44)
Imani: She is. She's caught in a catch-22 with respect to being the first then respect to how the play is understood, that it's understood as this assimilation as fantasy. Like white middle class America but just with black people and then she has other members of the black left criticizing her. And so she decides to tell this story that's broadly resonant but then the politics -- her politics get lost, her politics around race, her politics around class, and then she sort of tries to fix things and then she tries to fix things with rewrites of the play but also with the screenplay. And the producers won't put it in the film. She writes letters to the New York Times that don't get published defending her politics.
And so this is a period in her life that's like amazing and all her dreams are coming true and it's incredibly frustrating at the same time. And one of the things that I think is really quite important about her is she then -- she doesn't allow anybody to ever mistake her politics again. You know, she just is very forthright from that point forward.
Aminatou: One of the loveliest parts of the book is when -- that was excerpted on BuzzFeed recently -- was when you talk about her intellectual friendship with James Baldwin.
Imani: Oh yeah, yeah.
Aminatou: And it is such a lovely intellectual partnership to read about, especially from two powerhouse queer black writers.
Imani: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. They are beautiful friends. They are thinking partners. Yeah, they provide support to each other and then this thing they did of having a conversation through the creative work. You know, they have different dynamics that they explore and they go back-and-forth between the work. It just -- it's so moving to me because it shows what it means to really take the work that your friends do seriously, right? To show this deep care. I think it's a model for how we should nurture friendships. I also think there has . . . Baldwin is now this iconic figure. There's been too little attention paid to how important she was to him. She was important to him in terms of his political development. She was important to him as a source of support and care. And her death was absolutely devastating to him.
(46:30)
And similarly with Nina Simone. I mean Lorraine's death sent her into a tailspin, certainly I think an element in her psychiatric suffering later on. It was devastating. And so I hope that, you know, the love but also the impact of her loss is clear.
Aminatou: We are so grateful for all of your scholarship.
Imani: Aww, thank you.
Aminatou: It was such a wonderful experience reading this book and I don't know, it made me feel really hopeful for this kind of terrible political time that we are living in.
Imani: Oh, that means the world to me. Especially coming from you I really, really appreciate that.
Aminatou: Oh my gosh, we're such big fans. Thank you so much Imani. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and we're so thankful for you.
[Interview Ends]
Ann: Oh my god, I love that thing about Lorraine Hansberry and James Baldwin's intellectual friendship. Like we talked about that excerpt so much. Ugh, thank you Imani Perry. So our last interview on this episode is me in conversation with a person we both know and love, Glory Edim.
Aminatou: Glory!
Ann: Who is the founder of Well-Read Black Girl, a book club turned literary festival based in Brooklyn. And she's also the editor of a new anthology of black women writers called Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves.
(47:55)
Aminatou: And also a babe in a recent New York Times profile of her. So you know how to get to nyt.com.
Ann: When I opened my New York Times homepage and saw Glory's face I screamed like true fan style.
[Interview Starts]
Ann: Hi Glory, thanks so much for being on the podcast.
Glory: Hi! Thanks for having me on here. This is really awesome.
Ann: I would love to hear you talk a little bit before we get into your book, a little bit about Well-Read Black Girl and what that is and what sparked the inspiration for it.
Glory: Well the story of Well-Read Black Girl is a little uneventful in the way it started in a way that was completely unexpected, right? So my partner had given me this t-shirt for my birthday and I just wore it out into public and it started conversation. So women would come up to me and ask me questions, and they'd be like "Where did you get this shirt? It says well-read black girl. What does that mean? Who are you?" It was this hilarious but again unexpected thing that was happening any time I wore the shirt out into public. And it was that shirt that really was the catalyst for me deciding what Well-Read Black Girl is and starting the book club and starting the Instagram and all these things. But I didn't go into this thinking I would have a movement per se. I really wasn't planing for such wonderful things to happen and I'm so grateful that they did, but once that idea was planted and I was talking to so many people, obviously I was reading and I've always been a big reader. So from that one random t-shirt conversation I now have almost 140,000 followers on Instagram? So yeah, it's definitely a lot of people who are liking and sharing ideas and talking about their favorite books.
(49:50)
I mean the real special part of it is I started to plan what to think about the new writers. So I really focus on women if it's their first book, they're out in the world. They're trying to get people to buy the book and have -- can they build their community? And most importantly it's a group of black women that are like tuned in and want to support them in the most effective way. And now . . . [Laughs] I have a buzz to go along with that so really exciting.
Ann: Yeah, talk a bit about the book and what made you want to put together this collection. Because I was wondering if you see it a little bit as like a primer or as like a point of entry, or if you kind of see it more as like a snapshot maybe of this moment and some writers that you're loving.
Glory: I think I look at it as a point of entry in terms of this is my first time moving from reader to editor and I have such a new appreciation for writers. And all those contributors from Jesmyn Ward to Rebecca Walker to Bsrat Mezghebe, it's a range of voices that are either established in the canon, so everybody knows who Jesmyn Ward is, then you have new voices like my dear friend Carla Bruce-Edding. This is her first time actually being in a book, right? So she's written for several different publications and she's working and she's a phenomenal writer but I also wanted to invite her to be part of this collection because it's again discovering new folks. The book itself, when you look at it and you read all the different essays, the two things that come to mind for me are meaning and identity. And so many of the stories are really about personal journeys into black womanhood and how they were able to discover themselves in the characters.
(51:40)
So there were so many just like memories of people coming into themselves and their own true origin stories, and that's really my favorite question whenever I'm doing something. I love to ask people what's your story? What's your origin story? And that really opens up people to say anything and really gives them the space to describe how they came into being. And so this book, I hope that in one year, five years, in ten years whoever picks it up can still have that feeling and the essays feel very much like conversations, that you're listening to a memory and you're feeling . . . you feel a scene, you know? And that's what I was really striving for as I curated and even as I selected the contributors. I wanted this to be a beautiful legacy that lives in the library and a young woman can pick that up, feel seen, and just really feel validated.
Ann: Yeah, and there's something so cool to me about kind of going -- really translating what you do with the Instagram and with the community and the newsletter and everything that you're doing, it's sort of like saying okay, well that all feels maybe a little diffused. Here is one thing I can hand you, and be like this is what it feels like to be a part of this, a part of this movement and community. I'm wondering if you have thought about that as well, like there's something about a book that just lives longer than maybe an online conversation or like a specific group of people in one place at one time.
Glory: Oh yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I think my time at Howard really has prepared me to usher the community and the anthology into the world because naturally I'm part of this lineage of incredible writers. I studied Toni Morrison and Zora Neale Hurston but what was in that was looking at one's personhood in a really slow and meaningful way, so there wasn't . . . I just felt comfortable being myself on those canvases. And I didn't want people to miss out on that feeling of just being like 100% present and not questioning their blackness. They're just like they're there, you know?
(53:55)
So when you're reading the book you are experiencing a moment of being in the book club because why the book club is so special is because people are completely candid in the space. I mean when you walk into the book club we can end up talking about anything, right? There's a comfort there that you know you're being listened to. I have a good friend, Misha, she likes to call it creative church.
Ann: I love that. [Laughs]
Glory: That's what it is. She's like I feel like it's like a congregation that we're building. In this book you have this beautiful chorus of voices, right? So the book becomes the choir and we're like singing and we're snapping and we're nodding. We're like yeah, girl, I feel that. That happens to me too. There's a lot of just sisterhood that is really unexplained when you walk into the room and it naturally just happens. So the book is part of that, trying to branch out and introduce the feeling to more people around the world. And inspire people, most importantly, because that's the goal to have a living record and also just inspiration for more women, more black women that want to be writers and may feel that it's a difficult task. And it's like no, read this essay and it'll tell you otherwise.
Ann: Right, or here's a lot of different ways to do that and live that, right? That's the cool thing about an anthology I always feel like. It's like here are a lot of different approaches to this one fundamental question or experience or theme.
Glory: Exactly. Exactly. And in that you have so many elders too. I think that's another part of the community that I'm so enamored by. The elders, man, we need to sit down and listen to what has happened before and have . . . because there are blueprints and there's road maps. My favorite part -- I mean there are so many favorite parts, but one of my favorite essays is Lynn Nottage's essay because she really -- she talked about her family. You know, she talks about her mother and father that were just immersed in the arts and they introduced her to so many different people in her home. And it's about just how she went into playwriting and how at one point she thought she couldn't do it. She thought it wasn't a significant, meaningful career for her to step into. She looked at the artistic practice as a little bit being frivolous, you know? Because so many things were happening in the world and she had to step away from it. She did PR for the Human Rights Campaign for several years and had a great career with that, and then something in her clicked that she decided to go back to playwriting and became who she is now. Just so phenomenal, you know? So we wouldn't have -- if she didn't have these moments where she questioned and she pushed back and she was like okay, maybe this is the path for me? But no, actually I'm an artist and I have to do this.
(56:45)
I mean I was just really encouraged because sometimes it feels like you have to do everything right now and if you don't have everything done by the time you're 25 you're a failure. I'm like y'all, remember Toni Morrison was, what, 40 when she first wrote The Bluest Eye. You know what I mean? The timelines that we force upon ourselves, they don't exist and we can do anything we want and we can write the books we want or create the careers. We don't have to be on anyone's timeline except for our own because if you believe in it and you believe in yourself it will come to fruition, you know? And just being really persistent and dedicated to whatever your goal is.
Ann: Oh my god, that is the best pep talk. Ugh, can I talk to you every morning before I start my day? This is great.
Glory: [Laughs]
Ann: Well I'm so excited to read the book and thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Glory: Thank you! This is so much fun Ann. I love talking to you. I love talking to you on the Internet, in real life, on podcasts. You guys are fantastic and I love y'all so this was a lot of fun. Thank you for having me.
[Interview Ends]
(57:48)
Aminatou: Ugh, Glory! I'm so happy this book is out in the world and exists and it truly is required reading.
Ann: I know, and I love that she took a break from her writing retreat to talk to us for this episode because she didn't have to.
Aminatou: Thank you Glory!
Ann: Okay, so we read most of these books a while ago to do these interviews. I want to know what you're reading right now.
Aminatou: I have two books on my nightstand right now, If They Come For Us: Poems by Fatimah Ashgar that are really, really good, speak to the brown and immigrant experience, and it's always great to read one poem before bed. And a lot of times I read more than one. And the other book that I am reading right now that I am loving and I brought on tour is Ninth Street Women which is a book about Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler who you might recognize a lot of their last names because their partners are very famous painters. But anyway these women are five painters and the tagline of the book is like Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art. So it really is about these women artists who never really got their due and sexism that is prevalent . . .
Ann: What, you mean women artists didn't get their due? What?
Aminatou: Listen, that's what I'm hearing. But the book is really, really, really incredible and, you know, a good historical, contextual art-anchored non-fict.
Ann: Oh my god, I can't wait to read it. Okay, so my tour read -- like I read ten pages to put me to sleep when I've got show adrenaline at the end of the night -- is The Remains of the Day. [Laughter] A late '80s/early '90s classic by Kazuo Ishiguro. And it's just about some buttling, some butling in England. It is incredibly slow-moving. I am not invested in anything that's happening and it's why I go to sleep. It is like my own personal -- you know some people use a meditation app? I have ten pages of this book. I flew through it I am happy/sad to report. And then the book that I've been recommending to everyone lately is Thomas Page McBee's Amateur which he's been on the show. He was on our Ask a Man episode earlier this year but I have turned to it again and again. I read it in galley form last year but I have continued to turn to it as toxic masculinity has seemingly creeped into literally every corner of American life and found new prominence. I would say it's always been there. And I really think he's got a lot to say to people, no matter what their gender identity is, who are interested in and grappling with definitions of masculinity. And also definitions of self and identity. So I've been recommending that left and right to men and women alike.
Aminatou: I've been recommending the audio book of that.
Ann: Hmm.
Aminatou: Because his reading voice is delightful, which you know how I feel about male voices in general. No thank you.
Ann: Does he read it himself?
Aminatou: Yes.
Ann: Exciting.
Aminatou: He reads itself, and beautiful reading voice, great reading energy. So if you're like me and you're in the audio book game this is one of the ones I recommend.
Ann: Pro tip. Great, my reading list has just grown again. [Laughter]
Aminatou: See you on the Internet boo-boo.
Ann: Oh my god, see you on the Internet, on the nightstand stack, in the library. See you everywhere.
Aminatou: See you at the airport on tour.
Ann: Oh my god. [Laughter]
Aminatou: You can find us many places on the Internet, on our website callyourgirlfriend.com, you can download the show anywhere you listen to your favs, or on Apple Podcasts where we would love it if you left us a review. You can email us at callyrgf@gmail.com. We're on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at @callyrgf. You can even leave us a short and sweet voicemail at 714-681-2943. That's 714-681-CYGF. Our theme song is by Robyn, original music is composed by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs, our logos are by Kenesha Sneed, our associate producer is Destry Maria Sibley. This podcast is produced by Gina Delvac.