Speaker 1 00:00:12 You are listening to Ride On Radio on Kfa, a 90.3 FM and streaming live on the
[email protected]. I'm Sam on tonight's program, Liz talks with Brian O'Hare about his short story collection, surrender in bittersweet stories with surprising humor. The characters grapple with the choices they've made in a country they no longer understand, written in spare, and an unsentimental prose hit with a startling emotional punch. These stories and the unforgettable characters who tell them will live long in their reader's imagination.
Speaker 2 00:00:49 And in the last part of the hour, we'll be featuring one of our legacy interviews. Um, join us as we do a deep dive into the archive and listen to an interview from the past selected by yours truly, all of this and more so stay tuned to right on Radio.
Speaker 3 00:01:19 Hello, Brian. Hello, Liz.
Speaker 4 00:01:22 Hello.
Speaker 5 00:01:23 Hello. Liz,
Speaker 1 00:01:25 You're
Speaker 3 00:01:26 Both on the air,
Speaker 4 00:01:26 On radio.
Speaker 5 00:01:27 Thank you for having me. I'm thrilled.
Speaker 4 00:01:30 Oh, it's gonna be good. Good, good, good. Are you in la?
Speaker 5 00:01:34 I am in la yes.
Speaker 4 00:01:36 You wanna talk about kids 10 below here?
Speaker 5 00:01:39 Yeah. You know what?
Speaker 4 00:01:40 Okay,
Speaker 5 00:01:42 Good. No, go ahead. Saying, my house has no heat, so it's cold. Cold.
Speaker 4 00:01:46 No, it's not cold. Okay. Well, we're talking to Brian O'Hare, author of the book, surrender. And we'd like to start out with the reading from you if, if we may.
Speaker 5 00:01:56 Absolutely. And real quick, uh, a little context, uh, because I couldn't read anything in its entirety. This is a story called Exiled. And, uh, basically what's gonna, you're gonna hear is that the antagonist Mad Mike, who's the batt, the Marine Corps battalion commander, who's like the Lord of the manor, or you know, in charge of, you know, the, uh, the fiefdom is gone out into the middle of the desert during the Persian Gulf War to relieve the protagonist Francis Keen, who's a lieutenant of his command. And Mad Mike might be drunk. So that's the lead in.
Speaker 4 00:02:30 Okay. By the way, I don't think we, uh, told you you can't use curse words, so you have to bleep those out as you're reading.
Speaker 5 00:02:37 No, that's okay. I found, uh, I happen to find a couple paragraphs with no curse words. Lots of curse words in the book. I like curse words. Okay, but I understand that FCC doesn't, so here I go. Right. Mad Mike leans into keen his attention, feral, almost carnal under different circumstances. A prelude to a kiss, possibly, but there will be no kiss. Rarely keen waits for the punchline as mad. Mike lets out a long slow belch turning to smile at Corporal Lowe. Then back at Keene, the tang of booze lingers stubbornly in the slurry of Mad Mike's breath, wild Turkey and warm Coke. The specialty of the house. Courtesy, no doubt of the free of the free market capitalists running the 18 t tent back at Manif A that is what I think of you and your old man. Mad Mike attempts to re holster his pistol.
Speaker 5 00:03:34 After several tries, he gives up, the pistol becomes a burden. More deadweight to bear. Keen dares. A look at Mad Mike, a cut shorter, 20 years older and a thousand beers heavier. Oddly, perhaps given his immediate peril, Francis registers mad. Mike's cheeks pitted like pricks from an ice pick, leftovers from an unimaginable adolescence burning pink. Now from the booze, almost like blush Otter, still their color reminds keen of the Bogen villa growing in Norma's Yard, his girlfriend back in Honolulu, in her ability to extract suffering from him, like venom sucked from a snake bite her hands. The hands of an artist possess a kind of magic to create, to cure, to heal. And in that moment, keen realizes that he hasn't been touched by Norma or any human in more than a year. And deep within Mad Mike, a seed takes takes root of failure of defeat.
Speaker 5 00:04:38 Not in the mundane realm of quote winners and losers, all just football scores really ultimately meaningless. But a personal failing in the realization this failing was a chain thousands of years long that bound him, made him a prisoner, and that he willingly pledged himself to this chain at a fear like a fatal flaw. Yet for Mad Mike, there was only one way out, and that was forward. Give me your bars and get in the back of the vehicle, Lieutenant. Now surely this order was, is rooted in an ingrained faith in the established order of things, the trappings of irrational society. A place where Citi citizens stop at stop signs. Say please and thank you. In all Marines, well-trained respect small pieces of metal on an officer's collar, denoting status and rank. It's also a place where personal mythologies, when alchemized with tribal beliefs transform fallible human beings, the most common of men into demagogues and lords to be feared.
Speaker 5 00:05:43 The heroes of sports war in politics, the mad Mikes slave princes of conquest. All this is no longer that place. Keen remains silent. He's felt it, he's felt it to this shift, this lifting of the veil. And despite his still considerable fear, he smiles with directness and simplicity, acknowledging for a brief moment their shared intimacy. Mad Mike waves the pistol impatiently as if swatting an annoying bug. Let's go lieutenant. And even as he does it, it feels otherworldly. Unbelievable. As if someone else, someone much braver in reckless is doing it. Keen, dizzy with fear. Slaps the 45 from Mad Mike's hand ejecting the round from the chamber in the magazine, from the grip, he launches the magazine into the wind, watching in disbelief as it sales off. Mad Mike's right eye twitches, just barely. It might just be tmj, the migraine aftershocks, whatever, but it's done irretrievable still in disbelief.
Speaker 5 00:06:50 Keen presents the weapon to Mad Mike, almost whispering muzzle discipline, sir, even, even as it plays out in front of them, no one will remember what happened or if indeed it did happen so unthinkable. The total collapse of 200 years of dogma in unimaginable heresy, some things are best forgotten. There is no return. Mad Mike at least understands that he steps back from keen hawks, a defiant stream of Kodiak into the dirt it announces into the darkening air. I don't have time to hold your hand, lieutenant. I get a war to win, a nation to liberate bad guys to punish. Get that vehicle back to battalion asap. Mad Mike wheels on his boot and beelines for the Humvee. Bur barking at low saddle up, low re folds his body back into the cramped vehicle as mad Mike stares straight ahead in the Humvee jars awake, does a slow U-turn and disappears into the orange Rhine.
Speaker 5 00:07:48 Twilight back to the war in the glory. Keen watches the Humvee melt away. It's uncertain diesel growing fainter until finally all is silent again. He turns to his Marines and they regard one another as if from opposite shores across a great gulf in terms of rank, certainly, but also in terms of race and even class. But they understand something about each other. Indefinable, something that cannot be put into mirror words or even spoken aloud, something ancient. They will live within one another. Always. War is inevitable without end. You choose your sides. There are no guarantees. There will always be another mad Mike. And like the Marine Corps itself, mad Mike is as immortal as the snow globe desert dust now surrounding them. So while the night winds snakes across the dusty floor, keen eyeballs, the oil drums, just dark shapes now in spits. That's it.
Speaker 4 00:08:50 Brian O'Hare, reading from Surrender, A book of short stories. Uh, let's start with the, uh, you were in the Marine Corps for six years during the, uh, 91 Gulf War, and I'm wondering how your experiences there informed the short stories in the book, the ones, especially about the Gulf War.
Speaker 5 00:09:10 Well, I mean, they were, uh, they're a huge part of, you know, what this book is about. I'd have to say though, too, the thing that really sort of, you know, this is like the birth of this book was my father, who was a marine pilot in Vietnam, flew 307 missions, was like the coolest guy in the world. I mean, he was like a cross between like Jackie Gleason and like spaghetti western era, like Clint East to it, you know, this sort of silver tongue New York Irishman. Um, you know, but he died in 1998 from Agent Orange related prostate cancer at age 56. And, uh, you know, he had sort of raised me to be a certain kind of American man. I think, you know, this sort of like quintessential idea or ideal of American masculinity, you know, like the, the football team captain, you know, the, the, not only the football team captain, but you know, the one, you know, who was the team captain of the team that was like in the U s A today top 25, you know, all conference.
Speaker 5 00:10:08 Uh, from there I went to the Naval Academy, you know, and from there the, you know, the only path after that was to become a marine officer, you know, experienced combat for, you know, just long enough like four minutes to have checked that box, you know, became a father. And when my father died, you know, I was 32 and it, I really started asking, so, so what does this all mean? What did that all mean and what was it worth? Um, and so, you know, the title refers to surrendering, you know, a kind of, uh, mythology that we all have. Uh, you know, that just happened to me, the mythology that I had. But we all possess, you know, personal mythologies, familial mythologies, tribal, um, you know, national. And I gotta say too, that the Marine Corps is a great setting for this sort of laboratory to explain this stuff because, you know, I would say that their knowledge of their mythology rivals that of, you know, the world's great religions and they know it.
Speaker 5 00:11:13 And you know, the thing that the Marine Corps does better than all the other other services, which are great at what they do, is that the Marine Corps passes on its mythology or passes on its culture better than the other services. I mean, right now I've been outta the Marine Corps for 30 years, but according to that mythology, I'm still a Marine, I'm just not on active duty. And that's some really powerful stuff. So, you know, to your question about what was, you know, the Persian Gulf War experience, it was a huge part of the meat of this book, shall we say, or creating the philosophy of it. Um, but it really goes back to this mythology that for me started, you know, essentially at birth in the way that my father, again, who was a, a marine pilot himself and of possessed considerable mythology, he, you know, he hooked his mythology onto that of the Marine Corps, and I was impossible to resist that. So this is sort of me kind of unlearning all of that.
Speaker 4 00:12:14 Now you've decided on short stories for this. I'm curious, uh, what about that particular format appealed to you and, and, uh, and how did you pick the short stories and what order, how you decided on all of that stuff about short stories?
Speaker 5 00:12:29 Gotcha. Well, you know, I have to say that, you know, two of my, you know, my ultimate, you know, writer influences, you know, spirit animals or whatever you wanna call it, it was like Tim O'Brien who wrote the things that they carried in. Phil Cly, the National Book Award winner, Anne Marine, who wrote redeployment, uh, I think in 2012. And so I think that the short story, you know, is uniquely suited to telling stories about the military in masculinity for whatever reason, maybe they just did it in such an amazing way that they made it clear to me. I would say the less sexy version of that story is, is that, you know, six years ago or so, uh, when I finally said, look, I need to sit down and just, you know, I've got stories in my head and I need to start putting them down on paper, um, I almost started out writing these short stories as like backstory or homework for a novel idea that I had.
Speaker 5 00:13:30 And, um, you know, and then this sort of like organic world sort of sprung out of it characters, you know, you know, had relationships with each other in conversations. And there was a, you know, a 50 something through 50 something year through line of all these characters. And so I started to think of things as more of a unified whole. Then I, I like to think that, you know, like those two books, um, these interconnected short stories read almost sort of like a, uh, a short novel in a way. And then I would say the ultimately unsexy v answer to that question is, I figured if I couldn't write a compelling 15 page story, there was no way that I'd be able to write a compelling 250 page story. So it was practical too. Um, and it just happened to work out.
Speaker 4 00:14:22 I'm curious, uh, you said a little bit about why you went into the military. What would you say about being in the military to young people today who are thinking about it?
Speaker 5 00:14:34 Well, I mean, that's a great question. Uh, I mean, as I like to cheekily say, you know, people ask like, well, uh, how did you, how'd you go for being a marine to being a writer and a filmmaker? Um, and I like to say that, you know, hey, I got some bad career advice, obviously. Um, but I have to say that particularly in a culture like America, this relatively young culture where, um, you know, we're, we're very cut off from traditions from, you know, tribal rituals, shall we say, uh, that the military provides a kind of connection that automatically goes back, you know, over 200 years. And you have like ancestor worship, you have, you know, initiation ceremonies, again, rituals, um, traditions, which is really, I think, a particularly appealing for American kids, shall we say. Um, the thing that the Marine Corps sells really, that I think is most appealing for people and for me too, is that it sells transformation.
Speaker 5 00:15:39 Um, and I I, I don't think that the usage of that word is like, it's not coincidental. I mean, again, it's back to this comparison like with religion. Um, and it takes very common, you know, average American men and women and it transforms them into like demagogues in a way. Um, which I think is very appealing for a lot of people, myself included. I wanted to be transformed basically into my father. Um, uh, so that was, you know, the best way to do that for me was to become a marine. I mean, I'll have to say that beyond all of that, I think what the greatest appeal or the greatest benefit, if I could use like such a crass word, was that it was the first time real. So I'm from a basically a, a middle class white suburb of Pittsburgh originally. My first true experience with true diversity happened in the military, first at the Naval Academy.
Speaker 5 00:16:42 Um, the Navy, even in the eighties when I was in there, was, they were trying and they were doing a pretty, pretty decent job of sourcing kids that came from a variety of different backgrounds. And then certainly like my PhD in, you know, diversity in a way. And what happened in the Marine Corps. I mean, the US military in a lot of ways is, is arguably the most diverse tribe in the history of humanity. I mean, there's, everybody is in the US military and every, and I would say that the really cool thing or the like unintended byproduct, cuz that's certainly not why, it's certainly not why the, the US military was created, but I think people kind of come to an understanding and an appreciation of each other as human beings rather than these like kind of surface things that divide us millennium content, uh, who you sleep with or don't sleep with.
Speaker 5 00:17:40 You know, who you pray to or don't pray to what sex you are. Um, and you kind of get stripped down through a, I would say a common suffering for lack of a better way of putting it, where you get to sort of like appreciate each other as human beings. And for me, as much as I didn't enjoy the Marine Corps, I did not enjoy the Naval Academy. It was a transformational experience for me. I mean, the beginning of the book is dedicated to, uh, a handful of my Marines. And it's basically, you know, because you transform the way that I see the world, and that's very true. It will probably be the single, like most impactful experience I've ever had in my life. And I still keep in touch with those guys. Um, and I was down right before the pandemic to a 50th birthday party in, you know, in North Houston, one of my guys.
Speaker 5 00:18:36 And what I thought was beautiful was that, you know, this predominantly or historically African American neighborhood in North Houston, nobody thought it was weird that there was this white guy there drinking beer and eating boudan sausage and laughing and having a good time because, you know, I was like them because of our, you know, military and Marine Corps experience. And so that's a really wonderful gift. And I have to say that, you know, if you can get out of the military without having, you know, a whole bunch of disabilities, like I have, uh, sleep apnea, uh, some crazy hear hearing loss in ulcerative colitis, um, it gives you a great gift. And that happens, you know, that's, you can't, yeah, it, it's amazing. So yeah,
Speaker 4 00:19:26 Two questions together, uh, has writing about your experiences and also about the teenage, uh, uh, years as well, it goes back and forth kind of, uh, and people who have P T S D writing about their experiences. Do you feel that that helps you feel, that brings things, uh, either to closure or to, uh, healing?
Speaker 5 00:19:56 Absolutely. Um, I actually, the, the best teacher that I've ever had in my many years on this planet, uh, was a guy here in Los Angeles, Jim Cara, who is a bit of a legend here in Los Angeles. And he would always say, you don't have to be happy, you just have to write. And I think that was really a great bit of advice because, you know, happiness I think is really overrated. And I think Americans are oddly obsessed with happiness, particularly middle class Americans, you know, having to present like a smile for the world. And I would imagine too in a place like, you know, Minnesota where there's, there's that Minnesota nice, I don't know if it's true or not, all the Minnesotans I know are very nice. Um, but it becomes a kind of burden in a way. So to your point about, you know, does this help ease P T S D or you know, trauma?
Speaker 5 00:20:56 Yes, absolutely. For me, you know, again, people look at me, I'm a, I'm a, I'm the ultimate insider. If you look at me from the outside. I mean, I am, I am the center of what traditional, like American society looks like. I'm a middle-aged heterosexual white male who's married. I have two kids, you know, I was, again, the football captain. I went to the Naval Academy and a marine officer. But, you know, I, I've oddly perhaps I, I've always sort of felt like I was swimming upstream all the time. Um, and so there, you know, you know, I've had trauma as well and trauma related to these, you know, again, these sort of archetypical American male, um, roles that I've played. Um, and it's helped me let go of a lot of it and make peace with, you know, a a lot of how I was brought up and the experiences that I had and, you know, in these different, very unforgiving, you know, dare I say like bullying arenas.
Speaker 5 00:22:05 Um, so yeah, I think it's super helpful and I would highly recommend to anybody out there, um, who's thinking about writing, who has trauma to do it. And you don't need, you know, you don't need anybody's permission. One of my big passions is de mythologizing the process of storytelling. I don't have an mfa. Um, like I said, Jim Caro's writing class was the only class that I ever took. I just sat down and I started writing. I read a lot, you know, I would recommend that you read, you write and you be patient, but you absolutely have the right and are qualified to tell your story. You know, we, you know, we look at places like, whatever it's NYU or Columbia or you know, or University of Iowa and their, you know, their writer's workshop and you know, I'm kind of in awe of it too.
Speaker 5 00:22:58 And there's a part of me that feels like, Ooh, maybe I'm not a real writer because I don't have an m f a. Um, it doesn't matter. If you can tell your story and you're passionate enough about it, you're qualified to do it. And I think, you know, in, I, I taught, or I was a, a visiting writer for a week this past May at, uh, CUNY Kingsboro, which is the city University of New York at Kingsboro, which is at the far southeast end of Brooklyn. And as you would imagine, the diversity at CUNY Kingsboro was off the charts. And it was amazing cuz it reminded me in a lot of ways of the Marine Corps and these classes that I spoke with, um, you know, I would say, say that a lot of these kids or these people thought they didn't have anything to say or whether their stories were worth telling.
Speaker 5 00:23:51 Um, you know, but in those groups, you had people who had escaped civil wars in Yemen who came here by raft, or who walked here, um, you know, who then moved to neighborhoods filled with other people just like them who had had similar experiences and are taking care of siblings. Well, you know, and they just sort of think like, well, big deal. Like, I'm not special. And my message, I hope, was that like, you know, you possess the story of humanity just in, in your life, even at age 18 or 19. And you absolutely have a right and are qualified to tell your story because we need to hear those stories.
Speaker 4 00:24:34 Great. Brian, we have run out of time. We have been speaking with Brian O'Hare, author of The Short Story Collection, surrender. Thanks so much. It's been a wonderful interview. We really appreciate your time here on a Tuesday night.
Speaker 5 00:24:48 Thank you so much, Liz. I appreciate you having me.
Speaker 4 00:24:51 You bet. Okay, thanks a lot. Bye. And now this
Speaker 6 00:26:06 I do, um, I'm going to actually just go ahead and start from the beginning and, uh, just before I begin reading, so listeners know, I, my, my book is told in two parts, there's the main narrative and there's also an inter ary story. So I'm gonna read a little bit of both. For this first passage, his mind wanders back six months to a feted basement, windowless lit by a solitary bulb empty except for sweaty bodies meeting and sanctuary. There was arguing than a loosely drawn plan and a call for volunteers. They laughed when he raised his hand. Someone said, can't send a boy to do a man's job. Chapter one, destiny sucks. Sure it can be all heart bursting and undeniable in Bollywood dance numbers and meet me at the Empire State Building, except when someone else wants to decide who I'm gonna sleep with for the rest of my life, then Destiny is a blood sucker and not the SUNY sparkly vampire kind.
Speaker 6 00:27:04 The night is beautiful, clear and bright with silvery stars, but I'm walking across obnoxious parking lot with my parents toward a wedding where a well-meaning auntie will certainly pinch my cheeks like I'm two years old. And a kindly uncle will corner me about my college plans with the inevitable question, pre-med or pre-law. In other words, it's time for me to wear a beauty pageant smile while keeping a very stiff upper lip. It would be helpful if I could grow a thicker skin too, armor, perhaps. But we're almost at the door. My purse vibrates. I dig around from my phone, a text from Violet. You should be here. Another buzz and a picture of Violet appears decorated and streamers dancing in the gym. Jeans, skinny lips glossed everyone is at Mor. Without me, it's bad enough. I can't go to the actual prom. But missing mop two is death by paper Cuts Mop is the informal prom stand up where everyone goes stag and dances their faces off.
Speaker 6 00:27:54 And there are always new couples emerging from the dark corners of the gym. I miss all the drama as usual. Maya, what's wrong? My mother eyes me with suspicion as always, I only wish I could muster up the courage to actually warrant any of her distrust. Nothing. I sigh. And why do you look like you're going to a funeral instead of your friend's wedding? I widen my toothy fake smile better. Maybe I should give my mom what she wants tonight. The dutiful daughter who's thrilled to wear gold jewelry and high heels and wants to be a doctor, but the high heels alone are so uncomfortable, I can only imagine how painful the rest of the act would be. I guess a literal happiness is too much draft to my only daughter. Dad's chuckling head down, at least someone is amused by my mother's melodrama. We stepped through an arc of red carnations and orange yellow miracle to a blur of jewel tone, silk sorrys and sparkly fairy lights strung and lazy zigzags crossed the wall.
Speaker 6 00:28:46 The Bollywood eye suburban wedding hall feels pretty cinematic, yet the thought of the awkward social situations to come makes me turn back and look longingly at the doors. There is no escape. The tinkling of her silver belled ankle signal. Signal. The not to be mis approaches. Yasmine, who addresses my mother with the honorific auntie. The title accorded All mom aged Indian women relation or not ya, is only two years older than me in my mom's eyes. We should be BFFs. Our parents have known each other since their old heaven days. And my mom has been trying to make a friendship happen since Yasmin's family moved to the state several years ago, but in real life we're a dut of a match also. She's an annoying butt kisser. But the girls got style. Yasmin has dressed the snare, the attention of a suit. Suitable young gentleman.
Speaker 6 00:29:30 Preferably more than one because a girl needs options for peacock colored linga that sweeps the floor. Her arms full of sparkling Bengals, her emerald and pearl choker, and the killer Gol that lines her eyelids make her the perfect candy colored Bollywood poster girl as if uncle. How are you? Mommy will be so excited to see you book Maya Azi. Look at you. You're adorable. That shade of pink really suits you. You should wear Indian clothes more often. You know, I don't even try to hide it when I roll my eyes. You've seen me wear Indian clothes a million times. Come on, I should. Getting ready in the bridal room. My mom winks her blessing at Yasmine <unk> and show her how to be at least a little Indian. So much for family solidarity. Yasmine wraps my wrist in a death grip and drags me through the lobby to the tuna <unk> An old Bollywood love song that inspired millions of tears. Everyone seems happy to be here except me.
Speaker 7 00:30:24 That was Samira Ahmed reading from New York Times Bestseller Love, hate and other Filters. Welcome Samira.
Speaker 6 00:30:33 Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 7 00:30:37 So you, um, read the beginning that leads into chapter one.
Speaker 6 00:30:43 Yes.
Speaker 7 00:30:44 Is there anything you wanna say about how you chose the formatting and the layout? Um,
Speaker 6 00:30:52 Sure. Um, so as I mentioned, you know, there's really the, there's two narratives. There's the main story of Maya's story. You know, the story of this young Indian American Muslim girl, um, going through high school and you know, you know, she's like a girl, like all the other girls. She has dreams and crushes, you know, hopes, ambitions. She wants to be a filmmaker. She has trying to meet her parents' expectations, but also live her own life. And then there's also an inter ary story that follows an act of domestic terrorism, right? Um, as it's about to occur. And in, in the, in the book, those two stories meet each other. So there's eventually kind of a literal and metaphorical explosion. Um, but that inter inter story was actually inspired by two, you know, very specific things. One is the inter inter chapters in the Greeks of Wrath.
Speaker 7 00:31:40 Okay.
Speaker 6 00:31:41 Um, which I really loved. And you know, initially some, when I read the Grips of Wrath, I was kind of like, why is there this whole like two paragraph, you know, intrusion in the main narrative where he's just describing a turtle crossing the road who gets a, a pebble stuck on in its turtle, I mean in its shell uhhuh <affirmative>. And, um, then, you know, I realize how how these inter inter chapters give you these great inroads to the main merit of the, of the choses, right? And then the second feeling, which I, which was trying to capture more of a tone or the tension I tried to build in the, in inter chapters was inspired by a line from Truman Capote's in cold blood. Oh, okay. Um, which we know about the clutter murders. Um, and you know, we all, it's, it's nonfiction, so we know what the ending is gonna be.
Speaker 6 00:32:26 But he has a line in there where he says, presently the car crept forward. And that line in his book really jumped out at me because I had such a reaction to that. Like, no, you know, I don't want that car to creep forward. I, I want something to happen. I know what's gonna happen, but I want, you know, I want the action to change. I want, you know, the engine to fail. I want the carburetor to fall out. I want something else to happen that prevents that car from going forward because I know what the next thing is going to be. Right. So just in those few words, he built such tension and I just love the, the tone that he was able to use. And um, you know, I just was really gripped by that, that really simple sentence.
Speaker 7 00:33:02 Hmm. Yeah. I see what you mean. That sort of tension of the audience knowing what's happening, but unable to stop it.
Speaker 6 00:33:09 Right?
Speaker 7 00:33:10 So the character that you are introducing, Ethan, we see sort of clips of memories and things that don't necessarily add together to equal something to the reader until we get further along. Yeah. It was very mysterious. Um, so I thought, and one thing I noticed about that was that, so he is a white supremacist, but he wasn't overly simplified into like an just an evil force or something that's blatantly evil immediately. It was quite sophisticated.
Speaker 6 00:33:49 Right. Well, I'm gonna just pause for a second because there's like major spoilers in there <laugh>. So, um, I don't want to, um, I I I'm trying not to speak too much to that specific piece in there. Um, but, um, you know, Maya also in, in her ma main narrative encounters Islamophobia from Brian, you know, a a kid in her class who is, you know, extremely hateful and you know, might also be somehow wrapped up in potentially sort of, sort of the, his in early initiation in into to white supremacy. I mean, not in necessarily a formal way, like joining an organization, but, um, you know, the tentacles are reaching out to him. So there is that element in the book.
Speaker 7 00:34:33 Right.
Speaker 6 00:34:34 But I try to char, you know, I try to, you know, really flesh out the characters. I mean, I don't want sort of the, you know, some kind of stereotypical cartoony bad guy, right? Um, you know, whether, you know, every person in the book is supposed to be like a, a real person. You know, the, you know, the thing about people who commit acts of terrorism, you know, who, um, commit horrible hate crimes, you know, they're people too. They may be monsters. But, um, that in a way like to me, feels more terrifying that the monster is someone that we know that we have perhaps, you know, grown up next to or is in our class or, you know, that is on the bus with us,
Speaker 7 00:35:17 Right?
Speaker 6 00:35:17 So I wanna, you know, created like a, you know, well fleshed out characters.
Speaker 7 00:35:23 Did you think about the causes of Islamophobia when you were writing those characters?
Speaker 6 00:35:30 The causes of Islamophobia? I mean, I honestly don't think there's a, a cause per se for, you know, prejudice or, you know, bigotry, hatred. Uh, you know, a lot of it stems from ignorance, but I don't think of it as having like one inciting incident. I think, you know, fear and not understanding our commun humanity is a large part of what, what what contributes to hate. I mean, I, I talked about that ignorance. And you know, I, I, I don't think I can speak to the mind of someone who is a bigot as to why they feel that way. But, um, I tried to capture, you know, a disaffected person who might, uh, you know, who might lean in that direction. It doesn't necessarily mean that every person who feels sort of disaffected or disenfranchised in some way is going to become, you know, a bully or it's almost sober, you know, commit a hate crime or, or whatever. But, you know, like I said, I was trying to create a real person, right? Real people. And people have passed and they have things that happen to them. I, I don't necessarily think there's, you know, one-to-one correlation in an incident in our past that makes us a certain way. But, you know, the sum of our experiences do help make who we are, make us who we are.
Speaker 7 00:36:53 I guess I was excited in reading one of your characters who seem to be struggling with some identity issues, but I won't say more since it doesn't, since you don't wanna give away where the story leads <laugh>. Um, so how did you decide you that this was a novel you wanted to write?
Speaker 6 00:37:14 Well, my story came to me. It wasn't, um, you know, like I was just talking about how, you know, I don't really think things were inside by a single incident, but there were a few incidents that sort of came together in my mind that led me to Maya's story. And one was just related to my own experiences of Islamophobia experiencing it. You know, really for the first time when I was a child, uh, during the wrong hostage crisis, when an adult man, you know, looked at me, I was about, I was a really little kid, he looked at me, he just, with this really just like this mask of like, hatred on his face and pointed at me and said a string of words, which I'm not allowed to say on the radio. Um, and, and ended it with Go home, you blank, blank, blank, Iranian.
Speaker 6 00:38:01 And I was utterly shocked by this. I've never heard you words, words like that before. And certainly not directed towards me. And I was also just shocked by the fact of his ignorance, like, why <laugh>? How could this racist be so bad at geography? Like, I'm Indian, I'm not Iranian. Why would he tell me to go home? Like I, my home is like, you know, half an hour away from here. Is that what he means? You know, a kid tries to rationalize things like that. Um, and that incident, something that stays stayed with me. I mean, it's really etched in my brain. And, you know, I think anyone who experiences something like that, you know, it's something that you just cannot forget. And then after nine 11, there were two, two, um, particular things that happened, um, not to me, but I was living in New York City during nine 11 and, and in the years after.
Speaker 6 00:38:50 And one of my friends, I remember seeing her, um, in the weeks after nine 11, and she was really stricken because, you know, the man that she buys her newspaper from the newspaper kiosk guy, you know, in New York City on, in Manhattan, on a lot of the corners, there's, you know, the, the kiosk that tells you to do in newspapers, magazines, they can be in the subway wherever. Well, her, her, the man who told her the newspapers that was Sikh, and she saw him and he had been beaten up. Oh yeah. And, you know, he had bruised and battered face and it was because, um, some people beat him up because they thought he was Muslim, he was wearing a turban, you know, he's Sikh. And then, uh, after that, some, sometime later, there was another incident in New York City where a cab driver was assaulted, stabbed by the passenger, uh, because a passenger saw his name, you know, on his cabby license and had asked the man, are you Muslim?
Speaker 6 00:39:48 And you know, this enraged him enough to like assault his driver. And I, I don't know, something about weeding that last one and kind of really brought up some of those memories from, of me, you know, mine when I was a kid, especially cuz there was, you know, there was a big spike in a Islamophobia, um, or, you know, hate crimes after nine 11. And I dunno, those kind, those, those, that combination of stories kind of led me into Maya story because I really wanted to capture this moment of childhood when, you know, something in your worldview or your life is utterly shattered. Uh, yeah. Even though you have, you have literally nothing to do with it. You're not expecting it, you know, you're just going through your day and because of what you look like or the sound of your name or the color of your skin, it's something so hateful happens to you. And just, you know, like I said, it's like that moment where something inside of you was shattered. And I wanted to try to capture that.
Speaker 7 00:40:48 Do you have another passage prepared to read to us?
Speaker 6 00:40:52 I, I do. Yes.
Speaker 7 00:40:53 We go ahead and read.
Speaker 6 00:40:54 So this is, um, yes, I'm gonna, it's the same thing. It's gonna be a little bit of an interr, um, chapter and then a couple paragraphs of of Maya's story. She wakes before dawn to say her first prayer. She's always loved the ritual. Starting off the day with the devotion to God, sitting on the prayer rug with her legs, legs curled beneath her as a threat of dawn appears against the horizon. This is the moment when she feels most at peace before she makes breakfast for her husband before they drive together to their small grocery store before the shop fills with a cacophony of women searching for fava beans, cumin, apricots, dried lentils, rosewater pistachios, card, pickled eggplant and vinegar, even after many years in this country, some still try to haggle as if they're in the bazaar back home. She pushes the complaints from her mind.
Speaker 6 00:41:44 In a few days, she'll be the one preparing the feast. Kamal comes home and it'll be reason to celebrate. She will drive the entire way, seven hours from Springfield to Dearborn. She worries. The drive will be too tiring for him that he will eat too much fast food on the way and not be hungry for dinner. Ma, I'm always hungry for your cooking. He assures her more and more. He sounds like an American, but at least he knows how to show his mother proper respect. Chapter nine, Friday, the last day of break, my last day with filled before school starts again on Monday when we return to the respective corners of our social cliques. Soon enough, these last, these lovely last days of swimming in cool water under a bright blue sky will fade from our memories like a past drawing left on the sun.
Speaker 6 00:42:27 But today is perfect. Bill wants into the pond ahead of me. I step forward my usual hesitation giving way to a tiny spark of confidence. I secure my goggles, check the waterproof bandage on my leg and swim six remarkably even strokes to reach Phil swimming me in water. I'm not exactly giving Katie Ledecky a run for her money. Still. I did a thing I was scared to do, but there's no way I could have done it without Phil. You're swimming for real. He's standing in the water, arms crossed, beaming at me as I come up. It was only a few strokes. In the next couple hours you'll be swimming laps thanks to you. That's the only thing I could teach you. You're better than me at everything else. Uh, you're forgetting wilderness for spade and avoiding bear attacks. I almost add, and football that decide against it, hope that a way more practical than dissecting literary symbolism, probably not in New York City, still turns to swim the length of the pond.
Speaker 6 00:43:20 I follow him in and try to remember to move my arms and legs and harmony with my breath. Slow but steady. I swallow few moles of water and lose count of my strokes and mess up my breathing. But I don't panic. I write myself, when I start shivering, I step outta the water, grab my towel, and sit on our beach so I can warm up in the sun. I filmed Phil as he swims capturing his grace, how smooth strokes barely ripple the surface. I need to cinematize this, all of this. I want proof later. I'll need to know that this isn't all the land of make believe.
Speaker 7 00:43:51 That was Samir Ahmed reading from her debut novel Love, hate and other filters. So the fact that Maya wants to be a filmmaker, um, plays into the novel in a couple different interesting ways. How did you develop that part of her characterization?
Speaker 6 00:44:11 Well, I wanted Maya to have a passion and uh, you know, filmmaking to me seemed like a really natural fit. I, I, I guess she sort of came to me as a, you know, an aspiring filmmaker. And Maya uses her camera both as the way she sees the world, the way she shapes it, the way she really edits her own life in a way, you know, the way she curates the things <laugh> that she wants to see and remember. Um, and at the same time, the camera is a filter for her. You know, it separates her from, um, from the action from, you know, the world outside of or beyond her lens. And she, you know, in growing into herself and, and trying to figure out what her journey beyond school is going to be, has to see if she can step out from behind the camera and kind of become, you know, the leading lady in her own story. So it really serves kind of this dual purpose, both as kind of this filter of the way she would views the world. Um, and also something that separates
Speaker 7 00:45:10 Her. Right. It also created some tension with her parents.
Speaker 6 00:45:16 Yes. Because her parents do not want her to be a filmmaker. They look at it really as only a hobby. Um, even though her father is the one who first got her, uh, um, you know, got her first camcorder so she could record, uh, a family wedding in India. And, you know, her parents want something that's more practical for her, something that's more stable. They really would love her to become, you know, a doctor or a lawyer. Um, but she doesn't like the sight of blood. So doctor is really out for her. But I think that her parents, you know, like all, like all immigrants who choose to come to America are literally, you know, destabilizing themselves from their, from their home country. In this case it's India and they're trying to re-root themselves in a, in a new land. They're trying to create that stability and they want the same thing for their daughter.
Speaker 6 00:46:06 You know, they, they want to provide their child with, you know, like all parents do with, you know, like that sort of, even for this, the stability to like have a successful life. And they want that for Maya. They want her to have financial security. And to them, the idea of the arts seems like e you know, how are you gonna pay, you know, your rent and your health insurance and you know, what if you don't get a job? And what if it takes years and you know, what, what will you do if it doesn't work out? It doesn't seem like a practical thing for them to do, but Maya wants to try to follow her passion and she has to figure out like, can I, you know, be the good loving daughter I wanna be, but still try to pursue the life that I want for myself that seems at odds with the life that my parents think I should have.
Speaker 7 00:46:52 Do you think some of those tensions, um, are inside of Maya because she is, she has two cultures, both Indian and American?
Speaker 6 00:47:02 Yeah, I mean, I think Maya definitely, you know, has a foot in both worlds and you know, it's that double consciousness that WB du boys talk about. It's not, it's not really anything new. Like so many people in America have that, um, where they have to, you know, code switch, um, whether it's from their home life or their school life or work and you know, something else. Um, and Maya has to do that too. Uh, you know, Maya loves her parents and she loves her culture and she, Maya herself doesn't feel like, you know, her culture is at odds with her desire to be a filmmaker. You know, like India has a obviously giant film industry. I mean, Bollywood is, you know, this booming industry and obviously there are Indian filmmakers, but, but her parents sort of desire for her to have that security and that stability is the thing that is really kind of getting in her way.
Speaker 6 00:47:56 It's not to them they, you know, they are fearful of this. It's, it's kind of unknown to them. And for Maya, you know, she, she can understand a part of it. And yet at the same time she's struggling with how, uh, to reconcile that with what she wants. Like either she can go along with what her parents say and probably be not happy, um, or she can try to do what she wants, but, you know, and make her parents unhappy and, and thereby still makes herself kind of unhappy. So, you know, it's, it's a real struggle for her. So it's a, I think something that teenagers are probably pretty familiar with, whether their parents come from a different sort of cultural background than the one they're growing up in or not. It's just the idea of, you know, that natural tension between parents and children as kids are growing up and growing away and more independent from their parents, and yet their parents might be still trying to, you know, hold on a little bit. Um, and perhaps those parents have expectations that don't really align with what the child wants.
Speaker 7 00:48:56 Well, we're almost out of time. Um, thank you so much for coming on their show tonight. Do you wanna say anything about what's next for you?
Speaker 6 00:49:06 Sure. I have, um, I actually have two books coming out in 2019. Uh, the first book, which is going to be, um, spring 2019, is called Internment. And it's a near future speculative novel that follows, um, a young woman and her family as they are amongst the first Muslims who are forced into internment camps.
Speaker 7 00:49:27 Oh, okay.
Speaker 6 00:49:28 And this young woman is, you know, trying to find the courage to both fight against that, to fight against, you know, overt, um, fascism and bigotry and also against, you know, the insidious, um, silent complicity all around her. And then I have another, um, novel coming out later, um, in 2019 called Mad Bad and Dangerous to Know. And that is actually a literary mystery. The main character is a young woman whose parents are Indian American and French. And on their annual trip to summer trip to Paris, this young woman meets, um, the great six times great grandson of Alexander Duma. And the two of them find a reference in a letter between the painter de Laqua and the writer Duma, um, to a 19th century Muslim woman. And they sat off on kind of a, the trail to figure out who is this woman that's appearing in these letters between De Laqua and Duma. And there's a, there's like a second narrative, uh, sort of like in love hanging other filters where we actually see the story of that woman as they're trying to find her.
Speaker 7 00:50:35 Oh, sounds intriguing. Thank you so much for being
Speaker 6 00:50:38 On our show. Have fun with I'm having fun with it.
Speaker 7 00:50:41 We'll look forward to, to reading it when it comes out.
Speaker 6 00:50:44 Thank you so much.
Speaker 7 00:50:45 Have a good night.
Speaker 6 00:50:47 Thank you for having me. Take
Speaker 7 00:50:48 Care. And now this,
Speaker 0 00:51:09 You
Speaker 1 00:51:09 Are listening to Right On Radio on K f ffa I 90.3 FM and streaming live on the
[email protected]. I'm Sam, I'd like to thank our guest tonight, Brian O'Hare and all of our listeners. Without your support and donations kfa, I would not be possible. You can find more news and info about right on radio at kfa i.org/right on radio. You can listen to all your favorite right on radio episodes, on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcast, apple Podcasts, and anywhere you stream your podcast. Please stay tuned for Bonjour, Minnesota.
