Speaker 1 00:00:47 You are listening to Right on radio, on K F I 90.3 FM and streaming live on the
[email protected]. Josh, I'm gonna turn it over to you.
Speaker 2 00:00:58 Thank you. And tonight's program, Dave Fed talks with Emerald Garner about her memoir, Finding My Voice on Grieving my father, Eric Gardner, and pushing for Justice Garner recounts her father's cruel and unjust murder, The immense pain that followed the pressures of an exploitive media and are difficult yet determined journey as an activist against police violence, as calls for radical transformation and accountability grow. Emerald Garner's memoir is a story of family and community and the strength it takes to survive, to stand, and to speak.
Speaker 1 00:01:28 And I'm Dave Feig. Then in the last part of the hour, Annie Harvey chats with Tessa Guni about her new novel, The Rabbit Hutch. The Rabbit Hutch is a savagely beautiful and bitingly funny snapshot of contemporary America, a gorgeous and provocative tale of loneliness and belonging, entrapment and ultimately freedom. All of this and more so stay tuned to Right On Radio.
Speaker 3 00:01:59 Welcome back to Right On Radio, on k f I. It is our distinct pleasure and honor to welcome Emerald Garner to the program. Hello, Emerald.
Speaker 4 00:02:08 Hello. Good morning. Good morning. How are you?
Speaker 3 00:02:11 Great. We're great. And we're so glad that you're with us. Emerald's book just out is finding my voice on grieving my father Eric Garner and pushing for justice. Um, before we start with a reading, Emerald, why don't you, um, well give us a little bit, an overview of the book. We have so much to talk about, about, you know, how you came into activism, which resulted in this book. But, um, the book is, um, part memoir is part journalism. There's a lot going on in here. Can you give us a little overview on, um, what the book entails?
Speaker 4 00:02:45 Um, sure, absolutely. Um, I decided to write the book, um, from my point of view, basically. Um, I wanted to create, um, somewhat of a manuscript, which would definitely help people who are in similar situations to mind, because when we came into, um, you know, becoming all over the world, the video going viral, um, there wasn't any, there wasn't too much guidance. There was guidance on how to fight for justice, how to, um, get laws passed, how to, you know, start nonprofits, how to, you know, get the story out there. But there wasn't a lot of mental health, um, resources. Um, and there wasn't really guidance, um, on how to obtain those type of resources from people who have, um, been in your situ, been in the same similar situation as myself. So, um, I decided to write the book and tell my part of the story and include a lot of the interviews that, um, were impactful for me, and that, um, definitely impacted my journey into activism.
Speaker 3 00:03:43 That's a really great descriptions. Uh, it really is a guide, it's a guide book for, uh, for a movement and for people who unfortunately are, are going through similar situations. So, with that as an introduction, Emerald, let's have your reading that you've selected and then we'll talk about your book.
Speaker 4 00:03:59 Absolutely. Excuse me. Um, I decided to choose Chapter eight, the Eric Gar Law because we put in a lot of work, um, to get this legislation passed, and it's one of my many great accomplishments. Yep. Um, I started off by saying I had the pleasure of speaking with so many different people as I continue my, all my quest for justice. One of the people who helped me tremendously in 2020 during the quarantine was New York State Senator Brian Benjamin. As we were reving up to embark on this battle, I asked Senator Ben Benjamin if I could interview him so we could have a documentation of us getting ready to do something monumental and have a long standing impact on the entire country. He agreed, and this was our conversation, detailing our plans to bring about the Eric Gar Anti Choco Act. Brian Benjamin Emerald, how are you? Emal Gar.
Speaker 4 00:04:51 I'm good. How are you? That, Brian? Listen, I'm just working hard and I'm just glad to be here to help. I've been dealing with the police, dealing with police reform issues. One, one of the things that we talked about the other day is the governor signed this execute the executive order saying that localities have, have, I'm sorry, <laugh>. I'm still a little nervous. Let me go back. Listen, I'm just working hard and I'm just glad to be here to help. I've been dealing with the, where police reform issues, one of the things that we talked about the other day is the governor signed an executive order saying that lo local localities have to reimagine policing in their neighborhoods, in their communities, and people have to provide a report of how they're going to reimagine and rethink policing, or else there won't be any state money. So I've been trying to, to start talking to folks, thinking about what, thinking about what does that look like? I I need to, I need you and folks who are impacted by this system, having this conversation on the floor when we're making these decisions. Otherwise, it's not gonna work. I can't have people out here thinking about this theoretically, making decisions on what's happening to our impacted families. So, I'm glad that you and I are talking right now.
Speaker 3 00:06:14 Thank you, Admiral. That Admiral Garner reading from her new book, Finding My Voice on Grieving My Father Eric Garner and Pushing For Justice. And that was the chapter, Chapter eight, dealing with the Eric Garner law. And Emerald, do you wanna tell us about the Eric Garner law, what that is, and, uh, why it's so important?
Speaker 4 00:06:32 Um, yes, absolutely. So the Eric Garner law is, um, basically it's answer, choke hold, at which pen penalizes anyone who use any, anybody that is in a position of authority that uses a choke hold or any type of arm hold or seatbelt maneuver to restrict anyone's breathing. So when the incident happened with my father, um, as you can see in the video, I didn't watch the video until five years after his death. Um, and I watched it in the room with the officer that killed my father, and that was my first time watching the video and to watch the video and see, you know, play by play, everything that happened as opposed to getting the report to speaking to other people. Um, I then realized that, you know, by them saying, Oh, it wasn't a choke hold because the hands were locked, or, Oh, it wasn't a choke hold because the arm was around the chest.
Speaker 4 00:07:19 It was just the language that they were using. And I was like, you know, if we gonna pass a law, we needed to specifically say what we wanted to say, because after my father was killed, George Floyd was killed in the same way. And I, I don't see no difference. I don't, I don't see a difference in the position, and I don't see a, a difference in the way that everything happened in both situations. So, the Argon law specifically speaks to that need to, to have the language clear, which is you cannot restrict anyone's breathing under any circumstances, and you must get their medical attention when they need it.
Speaker 3 00:07:50 Well, let me say on behalf of myself and so many others, congratulations on this law, and, uh, thank you. Um, thank you. Uh, and, and to get this done, it must have seemed overwhelming to just to, to begin, uh, um, how did you have this radical idea that you could pull this off? How did you get it done?
Speaker 4 00:08:10 Um, it, it was, it was a long journey, <laugh>. Um, I actually started before we, um, before, um, the pandemic hit. Um, and I was just writing my story from my point of view, Um, as the book starts, it's on the day that my father was killed. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So it starts on July 17th and what was going on, what was the feeling? And then I kind of like start at the end. So I go back into the story, I go back into my childhood, I go back into things and, uh, moments in my life that, that basically changed my path. So, um, you know, it's, it was just, it was just a way of telling it from, from from me.
Speaker 3 00:08:49 <laugh>, the many things that are striking and real in this book is the fact that you sort of became property of public opinion. Uh, you lost who you were. Other people wanted you to be a certain way, uh, respond a certain way, show up at a certain place, say a certain thing. Um, how did you get past that? How did you, how were you able to, you know, keep emerald, emerald? That must have been difficult.
Speaker 4 00:09:16 Um, it was super difficult. Um, you know, throughout this journey, you know, people clash, people bump heads, Um, you know, what people think I should be doing and what people felt like I should be doing at the time, it was just not, it was not doable. Like, and I was just like, you know, you guys have to understand what I'm coming from. I'm a single mother. I'm coming into the activist world, like, you know, I have to make readjustments in my life. I, I did have a life prior to this, and it was, it didn't include being on TV and traveling and talking about the death of my dad. So I had to readjust. I had to do a lot of readjusting
Speaker 3 00:09:51 And further readjusting, uh, a lot of things I didn't know. Um, your role as a mother grew and expanded, sadly, tragically, Uh, there was more, uh, sadness to come for the family. Do you wanna tell us about your sister?
Speaker 4 00:10:06 Um, yes. Um, my sister, Erica, um, just a year older than me, um, she died in 2017 of a massive heart attack. Um, just three years after my father, she had, uh, a daughter, and then she had a son, um, four months before, before she died, she had my nephew. And, um, when she passed away, um, it was, it was like tragedy all over again, all over the news. And I, and I absolutely shut down. So nobody knew I took the kids, um, unless you were really, really close to me. Like nobody really knew where they were. They didn't really know what happened. Um, when it came to the funeral, it was very private. It was very intimate because we didn't get that chance with my father. So I'm like, you know, I don't want her to be all over the media the way that he was. I don't want pictures of her, her casket, um, circling the internet. And I think I did a really great job because I haven't seen a picture yet. And if somebody has the picture, I would just like that they keep it to themselves. Um, but I was very, very, very, very, um, you know, overprotective of where and who I allowed around the children, because it was, it was such a tragedy, and I didn't want the exploitation to fall on them.
Speaker 3 00:11:12 You, you, you state this very explicitly in, in the book, but it comes to the reader's mind as you're reading this, that, uh, your sister was a second, a second killing, frankly, uh, following from your father. She was so, uh, overwhelmed and, uh, um, I don't wanna say obsessed, but she was
Speaker 4 00:11:32 Obsessed. I use the word obsessed. Okay. Because there's no, there's no other word to explain it, because when you step into this, she, um, she allowed activism to become her life. That was, that was where she, you know, that's where she wanted to spend all time and energy, but at the same time, it was taken away from her every time. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So to see that decline was, was very, was, it was, it was too much for me. So I was like, You know what, This will not happen to me. I have to step away. I have to take a step back. I have to reevaluate what's important, what I can handle, what I can manage mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and start to, to, to try to find some type of normal mm-hmm. <affirmative> so that I could begin to move forward. Because if not, I would be suffering the same faith as her. I'll be laying right next to her. Right. And I can't have that, because now I have three children to take care of.
Speaker 3 00:12:20 Yeah. Uh, there's so much in this book for everyone, and what you're getting at, for me was a, a powerful chapter and a powerful theme of the book, which is your chapter on mental health. And, uh, so tell us why you included that chapter. You've hinted at it now by talking about, you know, what, what happened to your, your sister, sadly, Uh, but why you included that chapter and what message you want to give us by writing about mental health. So directly,
Speaker 4 00:12:48 Um, I decided to write about the mental health to, to make it a specific chapter about mental health. And I wanted to drive that off of, um, the viral video of myself. Um, when the, the federal government decided not to indict the officers, I lost it. Yeah. And it was like, it wasn't a, in the house lost it. Like, I usually when they didn't, when the grand jury didn't indict, when he didn't get arrested, when he didn't, um, get fired when he didn't, you know, when all of the things didn't happen, it was like, I sat in the meeting with the feds and I'm like, Are you gonna indict or are you not? And, and when they said, not after, we've already seen the article, so we kind of already knew what was going on, but the confirmation mm-hmm. <affirmative>, like, sent me through the roof, and I was like, people saw that as my coming into my voice and being the justice fighter and being an advocate. And for me, that was a mental breakdown. Wow. And I just did not know how to manage my emotions. And at the time, I wasn't in therapy consistently. I didn't have the, the, the strong support team that I have right now. I did not have them. So, um, it was like, it, it, I just, it, I just snapped. And I, I drove my, my chapter of that because so many people have these moments Yeah. And you don't really see it until it's too late.
Speaker 3 00:13:59 Yeah. And unfortunately, the Garner family's not the only family, uh, in America in the last 10, 20, 200 years that's had to deal with this. Um, your, your, your response about the mental health chapter gets at this, but I wanna address it again. Um, what, what would you say to others families who are dealing with this, and unfortunately who will have to deal with this? Uh, what recommendations would you have for them?
Speaker 4 00:14:27 Um, I would say to pace yourself. Um, I work now with families who, um, I'm more so work with women who've lost, who lost their, um, children to incarceration in Rikers Island or in other prisons throughout the, throughout the country. And, um, what I basically tell them, they're like, How do you find hope? How do you find light at the end of the tunnel? How do you find this? And I just tell them like, I don't know what that thing was. I had to, to try a lot of different things. I had to try to go to therapy that didn't work. So I was back at square one. I tried different groups, different meetings, different um, programs. I tried a lot of things, but I finally found a thing that worked for me. So if I could help you find that thing, whatever that thing is, that's the o that's what I would advise you to do, is to find your thing. Because if you don't find your thing that keeps you away from what's happening right now, it's gonna be a constant reminder of what's going on. And for me, the pain and the hurting for them, the pain and the hurt is not gonna go away. It only gets a little bit easier to manage. It's never, it's never a hundred percent Okay. The days are never a hundred percent, because you never know when that breaking story is gonna happen, and boom, you're all over the news again.
Speaker 3 00:15:33 Right, Right. You were, I, I can't remember, maybe it was Reverend Sharpton who called you the strong one, or you were referred to as the strong one. Um, and this is a reminder when you read this, that even when we have the strong one in our family or in our circle, the strong ones need help too. Yes.
Speaker 4 00:15:50 And that's, and that's exactly my message, <laugh>, when I, when I definitely let people know, like, Yes, I could, I can, you know, do interviews, I could do this, I could do that. But I get, I get so nervous and so anxious people don't see that part, like, you know, sweating. And I'm just like, Oh my gosh, everything is just hot and I'm just all over the place. A lot of people don't see that. So I try to tell that story through my book, um, so that people can get, can kind of envision it in their head. Like, I want them to read the book and hear my voice. Right. And just see, you know, how I am who I am, so that that way they can hear it. And for me, um, I kind of mimicked, um, one of my idols, <laugh>, Jennifer Lewis and her book when she's like, you know, Black Mother Hollywood.
Speaker 4 00:16:31 And I was reading her book, and I was just like, Oh my gosh, this is kind of like me. I'm just very super dramatic. I'm, I'm anxious. I have anxiety. I, I, I get dramatic. I get all of these things and I deal with my mental health in a certain way. And I found a way that deal, that helps, that helps me. And that's all that I can offer to anybody else is to find their thing. Your thing may not be my thing, but it may help you to get where I am. And I'm not all the way there yet. So we're working towards being okay. A hundred percent every day.
Speaker 3 00:17:00 Yeah. Thank you so much for being open about all of that. That's so important. Um, uh, and it's, um, let's talk about Reverend Sharpton. And, uh, he, he gave you a little, uh, a boost, uh, a lift, um, when things were starting out, uh, for you in, in, in this role of activism. Tell us about Reverend Sharpton, how you came to know him and, um, how you came to work with him.
Speaker 4 00:17:22 Um, Reverend Sharpton, that's my guy. <laugh>. Yeah. I'll support him all day. I just, I just see the hard work that he does, and he doesn't really get credit for the work that he does. And having the opportunity to work with him was definitely a life changer for me. Like, we've, we've built a, a a really great relationship throughout the years, and it's like, we're more like family and, you know, I could understand, um, you know, how people, how people view social justice now. I can understand how things, you know, how, how, how, how to get things done. So, um, with the relationship with him, um, he, uh, Cynthia Davis worked in the nan, the nan chapter in Staten Island, and that's where my father was killed. So she was made aware of the situation, and she reached out to him that he invited us out to the National Action Network.
Speaker 4 00:18:09 Um, and then we did a big march on State Island, where we had over 500 people. Um, then we did a march on DC where we had over 2,500 people mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, we bus people from all over the place to come to, to, um, Washington to March on Washington. And that was a really huge, huge, um, um, you know, accomplishments for us as a family, because it's like, you got, you got to see the people stand with you. And I, and that's what Reverend Sharpton is about to see. Like, you have people that will support you. You don't know these people, You've never met them a day in your life, but they're praying for you. They're, they're, they're, um, you know, contributing to the movement. They're supporting you. They're signing the, the petitions. They're, um, liking the pictures on Instagram and Facebook, and they're making sure that the numbers are there so that, that, um, our story can be seen.
Speaker 4 00:18:53 Our story can be heard. And I appreciate that from him by standing by us. You know, like, it'll be times when I'll call him, text him or put the message out that I need him to, to, to, to, um, you know, just, just support me. Like, Hey, Rev, I'm doing this thing. Hey, I'm doing this, um, you know, this March or here, or I'm going to speak here. What are the major things that I need to be talking about? Hey, I wanna talk about this. How do I get my message across? And he's really great at helping me get my talking points. And, you know, just making sure that my message is clear in the way that people can receive it. Because I talk really fast, I stutter, I get everything jumbled in my head, and I'm like, I just need some help.
Speaker 3 00:19:32 <laugh>. Oh, you're doing beautifully. You're doing beautifully today. You're doing great, <laugh>.
Speaker 4 00:19:37 Thank you. Thank you. So I just really appreciate and love him, everybody at the National Action Network for us standing by us and supporting us and always uplifting my father's name. It means a lot. Like, you know, it just, it just means a lot to see that people are still here supporting in whatever way that they can, because people can only do as much as they can. And I appreciate whatever it is that anybody does.
Speaker 3 00:19:59 Love it. Love it. Uh, remind our listeners that we are speaking with Emerald Garner about her new book, Finding My Voice on Grieving my Father Eric Garner and Pushing for Justice. So, Emerald, you've been out giving talks, as you've mentioned, meeting with people, Um, what have you learned about America and its people? Anything, uh, did you come into this real, uh, you know, cynical about this country and the people in it, or, um, what, what's your reaction to the way people are treating you and re and, and welcoming you are not?
Speaker 4 00:20:32 Um, I think that you are a product of your environment in some ways, because you only, you only know what you learn from the adults in your life. So as a child, you have, you have people who get, you know, they lead by example. So if you are raised on hate and biased and racism and, um, you then grow up and you realize that the world is not what you think it is, you make a choice. So either you're going to, you know, be a part of the hate and the bias, or you're going to make a change about it. So I just feel like people are gonna be who they are, and I'm gonna be who I am, and no one can change me, and I can't change them. All I could do is stay on my side of the world, and they could stay on their side of the world.
Speaker 4 00:21:17 And that's just how I think people should deal with it. I don't think that racism is okay at all. Right. But Right. You, you can't, you can't change anybody. If they're, they have these values and this is how they grew up, then that's that you can't, you can't, you can't change it. And I, I realize that now because my, my view was very different, um, in the past, but now I'm just, I just, I'm just all about peace. <laugh>, I don't want no drama. I don't want no issues because I've had enough of that. Yeah. Over the past couple of years, being on, on the news, when you don't wanna be having people judge you and reading stories in the newspaper and thinking that they know your life. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, I wrote my book so that I could tell my story so that they know who I am without somebody else telling my story. Right. And telling them who my father was. I wanted people to know who my father was, who I am because of him.
Speaker 3 00:22:05 Right, right. Uh, Admiral, tell us about, we can't breathe.net. We're already pushing the end of our time here, and I wanna make sure we talk about that we can't breathe.net. What is that and, um, how to get started?
Speaker 4 00:22:19 Yes. We can't Breathe. Dot net is my nonprofit organization. Um, we are under the leadership of Global Form for women, um, and, um, Pivotal Ventures. And we are working towards women empowerment, youth empowerment, mental health, um, awareness. And we have three pillars, which is Jobs for Justice, where we help with employment services, LinkedIn resumes, mock interviews, et cetera. And after five hotline where young people or older people can call and just speak to somebody, just check in. Um, just have, just having accountability buddy. Um, so we have three people right now that are a part of the hotline and, you know, it's, it's an available number that's, that's at, so on the website, and you could reach anybody after 5:00 PM when everything else is closed, cuz you know, some, some business is closed at five. Um, so we offer that. But, um, overnight kind of support.
Speaker 4 00:23:06 And then the last one is Hot for Justice, where we really take a deep dive into mental health, into, um, youth mental health and how, um, certain things affect them, peer pressure and all these things. And how do we get them to shift from maybe not, not liking school very much, to coming to a place where it's like, I know I have to get it done. So how can we work towards just getting you done with high school and then revisiting what the, the next steps of your life is gonna be. So just giving them short term goals and you just making sure that we hold ourselves accountable, hold them accountable for making sure they reach those goals.
Speaker 3 00:23:40 Very cool. I invite, encourage everyone to visit. We Can't breeze.net. Um, you asked, I believe you asked if I have my memory serves, uh, Reverend Sharp in a question in one of your q and a's in your book, um, something to the effect of, I'm paraphrasing here, Emerald, but if, if you were king for a day or if you could wave a magic wand, what would you want to have accomplished? What would you want to have done? I'm gonna ask you that question. If you were queen, you're queen for a day, or you have the magic wand, uh, what, what, what, what would you make happen with that magic wand?
Speaker 4 00:24:12 I would have a multi resource center that helps people who are directly or indirectly affected by social, by, by, you know, social justice issues as far as police brutality, state violence, or any type of violence. I want this center to, um, service them in, in a complete way. So housing, jobs, mental health, um, you know, fitness, whatever it is, whatever their thing is. I would like for this center to be a multi-use center to help people who are affected by our police state violence, like me, specifically on their needs. Childcare, you know, household items, food, everything. I would just wanna have multi resource centers in every state.
Speaker 3 00:24:55 So what I love about that is, and this comes through in your book, is I think sometimes when we read unfortunate stories, um, we think about the immediate impact that you event that that piece of violence. And we have that we have a, whatever reaction we have to that, but it's, it's much deeper. The hurt and the pain and the needs go way beyond that one incident. Um, there's so much else going on in people's lives, uh, it's just a domino effect. Um, I'm just repeating basically what you just said, but it's a really powerful point, emerald, that you make and that you just made good for all of us to hear. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, so what can we all do? You, you hinted at this before, um, it, it's a natural sort of tendency I think of people when we read something like this. We hear someone like you, we pay attention to the news. What can I do? What can we do to, um, get at these issues, make, make, make the world a better place? I guess, and that's a silly question in a way, but, um, specifically, uh, from what you're working toward, what kinda guy like me doing Minneapolis?
Speaker 4 00:26:00 Um, I think that what you're doing right now is actually a help. Um, getting, getting the voice out there. Um, you know, we can't breathe. We are organization that supports women. We have a healing justice village, um, meeting that we meet with people all the time. And a lot of what I hear from, um, my, my women, I call them my, my support team, my girls. Yep. Um, um, I I hear from them is that they need support. They need to see people show up and, um, they need to see that people are doing things. And for one of the mothers, you know, um, the, the social media campaign that we had, she got over a thousand signatures in a week. Wow. And for her, and for us, I was just like, wow. Like all we did was put out an ask. We put out an action and we got a thousand signatures.
Speaker 4 00:26:42 So imagine what we can accomplish if we really start to hunker down on these goals. So what we are focusing on with the Healing Justice Village is supporting mothers who need childcare, who need, um, transportation. Because if we don't have childcare, we can't show up at the protests. We don't wanna bring our kids to the protest because people are unpredictable. So we need childcare, we need transportation. We need to make sure that, you know, our jobs are supportive of, you know, what we're doing. Um, when I worked for, um, my company, my last company that I worked for when I worked for acs, um, they were very understanding that, hey, I'm gonna go to a protest and then I'll come to work. So I'm come to work, I'm leaving early, I'm going on my lunch break to go speak at this interview, and then I'll be back at work.
Speaker 4 00:27:22 So they were very flexible. Not everybody's job is like that because again, we don't expect to be put in these situations. So for somebody who just started work and they are on the probation time, they can't take that time off of work with pay and to pay bills, get the story out, go to this meeting over here, go to this interview, pick the kids up from work. So we just need support in those ways. So just any type of support when it comes to childcare, um, sharing a post, um, you know, making sure that we have those resources. That's what we really focus on when we can't breathe, is making sure that we can't breathe right now because we have a lot of anxiety, but we shall breathe because we're coming together and we're creating this village of support.
Speaker 3 00:28:03 Love it. Love it. And we can all be part of that village of support. Yes. Uh, again, That's right. And we can't breathe.net. And uh, ladies and gentlemen, I hate to do this, but I'm gonna close this discussion with Emel Garner. What a treated spin. Emerald Garner is the author of Finding My Voice on Grieving my Father Eric Garner and Pushing for Justice. What a treat it's been to meet you and have you on our program, Emerald.
Speaker 4 00:28:26 Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Enjoyed that conversation.
Speaker 3 00:28:29 Thank you much.
Speaker 5 00:28:40 This is Annie Harvey and you're listening to Right On Radio, on Cafe I 90.3 FM in Minneapolis and streaming anywhere on k i.org. I'm here today with Tes Gundy, author of the National Book Award, Long Listed The Rabbit Hutch A Test. We're so excited to have you here.
Speaker 6 00:28:59 Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor.
Speaker 5 00:29:01 Thank you. Um, could you start, uh, our listeners off on the Rabbit Hutch, kind of briefly describe kind of what you were going for with the book, kind of summarize it for people who made out of read yet.
Speaker 6 00:29:14 Yeah, I can summarize it. Um, so the Rabbit Hutch takes place in a fictional post-industrial city called Vacaville, Indiana, and it follows a group of characters most of whom live in the same affordable housing complex as their lives violently collide over the course of three days, one summer.
Speaker 5 00:29:33 Excellent. And so there's kind of a rotating cast of really unique primary characters in this book. Um, one young woman named Blandine seems to be the connective tissue to most of it. Um, all of the other characters are aware of her. And I found it really interesting that, um, Blanding's narrative is in third person, but one of her housemates narrative, his name is Jack, is in First person. How did you choose kind of the amount of stage time that your characters get and who is seen from the outside versus the inside?
Speaker 6 00:30:08 It's a good question. I think when I'm first drafting, I try to write associatively and, um, when I was kind of putting the pieces together, I ended up shifting a lot of the chapters around and cutting things, adding things. Um, and so it was really, it was a process kind of led by intuition rather than, uh, any kind of formula or logic. And I think I was learning a lot from other contemporary polyphonic novels. Um, I think that as long as you are sort of, um, I, I guess creating a kind of balanced ecosystem, I didn't have a strict rule about how many chapters each person needed or how much screen time. Um, I think the reason I chose to put Jack's, uh, Jack's portion in the first person, and Jack is one of the roommates of, um, my, my protagonist. He is, I think he, I became really interested in the idea of narrating from the perspective of this kind of collective male gaze.
Speaker 6 00:31:06 Um, it was something that I had been writing about through the perspective of a woman receiving it for a long time, but not, um, I'd never actually tried to inhabit it. And that gave me an opportunity to think about the way that toxic masculinity is socialized and how a lot of violence against women is actually sort of performed to, um, to gain the admiration of fellow men. And I think that Jack's voice kind of came easily to me in first person because it was so distinct from my own. It was almost like I was overhearing it rather than, um, inventing it.
Speaker 5 00:31:44 Absolutely. I think that makes so much sense in the context of the book, especially thinking about the character of Blanding and how, um, a lot of men project a lot of feelings onto her, a lot of assumptions about why she does the things she does or projecting that the ways that she portrays herself or behaves are meant for others' consumption.
Speaker 6 00:32:07 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. I think I, I was really trying to write against, um, I suppose I was trying to represent the ways in which men are trying to kind of, uh, to commandeer her narrative and to make her a part of their narrative. And she's resisting it throughout. And I just think that that's, that's something that a lot of young women experience, especially, um, vulnerable young women who are sort of, I mean, in her case, she's, she's sort of easily targeted as prey for a lot of men around her. And, um, because of her structural vulner vulnerability and also just because she has a kind of, she just has a kind of effect on people that, you know, no matter what they want from her, there's something about her that's sort of captivating to others. Um, and so I, I wanted to, it was, it was I suppose a sort of wish fulfillment to write a young woman who was sort of offered the currency of male attention, which a lot of women are socialized from a very young age to, to perceive as the most valuable currency they can possess. Um, and for her to see through it and to see that it is not a currency she wants and a currency that she, um, she actually finds quite damaging.
Speaker 5 00:33:19 Absolutely. I think that so much of that was evident in the tone of the book. Like a lot of the narrative that came from Blanding's perspective was very wise and rye for like a 19 year old character. I was always really interested in how she observed places, whether it was kind of the trendy coffee shop that she worked in, or what her housemates were up to or things like that. Um, versus kind of the seriousness and coherent logic that the male characters of the book projected onto the world. I feel like Blandine could kind of lean a little more into the humor and the absurdity of life while also having seen more of the darkness. Um, how kind of, could you tell me more about crafting a tone for the book and crafting like the damaging kind of patriarchal aspect of it, but also that really wonderful <laugh> unique female perspective of this cool young woman?
Speaker 6 00:34:14 Yeah, I mean, I, I guess the, um, the tone sort of for me when I'm writing tone has to arise very naturally, and it's not something that I can kind of engineer. Um, it's more like discovering it rather than engineering it. And I think I was reading a lot of Joy Williams at the time, and, um, and what I love about her is that she's able to, I, I guess the darkness and the light always coexist in her work ed to sentence sometimes within the very same sentence. And I think, um, I encountered a term that I find very useful from my undergraduate advisor, Joy Mc Sweeney, who's a writer. And she said, I was interviewing her recently and she said she's drawn to invisible opposites and, um, things that are double but not binary. And I think I, I also am drawn to that in my work.
Speaker 6 00:35:06 And I, it's a really useful way to think about, for me, the kind of, um, the tragedy and comedy, the darkness and the light, the sort of violence and the, um, the harmony. And so I, I guess I, I find also that, you know, blue never looks bluer than when it's beside. Its opposite on the color wheel orange and the, so I guess the moments of humor and levity allowed the moments of darkness and violence to be even more resonant and vice versa. Um, so I guess, yeah, I am really interested in the way, the ways that I think Blondine especially has sort of developed a sense of the world and a sense of herself not as the protagonist really of it. She's sort of, I mean, she refuses to be a secondary character in anyone else's narrative, but she's not, she doesn't see, um, I guess she has a kind of refreshing refreshingly de-centered idea of, of the self in relation to her environment, especially the natural environment.
Speaker 6 00:36:12 Um, whereas I think that men are, are far more socialized to, you know, in this obviously corresponds to other forms of privilege, um, far more socialized to sort of see themselves as the main character of their environment and to kind of exist within, uh, an attitude of dominance, um, toward their environment, toward things around them. And that's a kind of narrative that I find to be kind of at the root of every crisis in America right now. And so if I were, you know, it's, it's impossible for me to imagine a heroin or hero of any book that I would read or write that is adopting that kind of attitude of dominance. Instead blending is adopting a kind of attitude of protection. And, um, I suppose she sees it as her responsibility not to dominate, but to, to protect the, the creatures around her.
Speaker 5 00:37:06 Yeah. I felt her to be very much someone who was like in conversation with other things like the park that she was kind of scheming on the side to protect from development and the intimacy that she feels with the other living beings in that park. Um, as well as her, I guess, kind of interest in other unique women, like, especially her fascination with like, um, ancient mystics or like woman martyrs mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And that was especially interesting as Blanding as a character is not religious. Like she doesn't, she talks about being not especially religious in the book or at least thinks about it. Um, what role did kind of the cannon of mystics or I guess community, even though they all seem to have lived very isolating lives, um, play in your construction of this novel, um, as like, how do you feel like it, how do you feel like those individuals affected Blandine and do you feel like she was in community with them in some way?
Speaker 6 00:38:16 Yeah, I, I think that this was central to my understanding of Blood's character because it was the first quality that I knew about her when I was originally conceiving of all my characters. They sort of arrived me with one very eccentric quality. And, uh, the task was to make that quality seem, uh, believable, inevitable. And, and so Blondine came to me as a teenager who wasn't especially religious, and I could almost see her kind of standing in front of a gas station in these kinds of oversized clothes and, and sort of look like she hadn't slept in weeks. And I thought, this young woman wants to be a mystic and she lives in this kind of extremely, kind of a world that couldn't be more distinct from the world of the medieval mystics that she's, um, that she's learning from. And yet there is one similarity, which is there, I I think she feels trapped in her environment.
Speaker 6 00:39:16 She doesn't see a way out, she doesn't have money, she doesn't have a high school education. She, um, she doesn't have any other resources or opportunities. So what she's searching for is a model of freedom that doesn't rely on dominance, that doesn't rely on, uh, physical escape. And she finds one in the medieval mystics, uh, especially the women mystics of the Catholic church because their model of freedom doesn't require any kind of privilege other than I suppose silence and time. And, um, and so that, you know, those are things that Blondine feels she can access and therefore it seems like a promising way to escape her body and her town. And I think for her, for blunting, her aspirations are, are kind of less spiritual and more visceral, I suppose. By that I mean her desire to exit her body is sort of the response of an animal trapped in a cage. It's not this highfalutin, you know, spiritual endeavor. Um, and I just figured because this town was very Catholic, these are the figures that she would encounter naturally and it was easy to imagine her latching onto them.
Speaker 5 00:40:33 Yes. Especially having been a foster child and had parents who had various like religious beliefs and tendencies to have taken something from that that she was then able to make her own and take with her and provide kind of some structure, some internal community to her, it absolutely made sense in the context of the character. And it was just an interesting choice. Cuz I feel like you don't very often see, um, that sort of influence. You wouldn't, you wouldn't suspect that sort of influence for this sort of character, I think, and that's something that made the, um, the plotting of this character seem really special as well. Like the, none of the men who kind of follow her around or do weird things like sacrifice animals or like take her <laugh> after school or things like that, um, none of them kind of are very aware of this. And it's just a very interesting example of the inner life that you don't get to spend time with when you have a very prescriptive view of another individual.
Speaker 6 00:41:44 Yeah. And I think I, I think I was also really drawn to this model of attention and the self because it's so, um, it's so it's programmed in direct opposition, I think to the, the models of attention and the self that were programmed to today. Like, I I, I think that the internet especially, but if, uh, you know, tons of other forces, advertising forces, social media, um, capitalism have kind of programmed most individuals in America at least to, um, to sort of exalt and barricade the self to be constantly performing the self. There's a, it's a very persona forward culture. And to have, um, to kind of fragment our attention and let it be common endeared mostly by, by kind of product driven advertising and the model of mysticism that Blondine is really drawn to, especially in, you know, in the context of these kind of medieval cloisters is, it's, it's the opposite of all of that.
Speaker 5 00:42:51 It's such a fascinating dichotomy reading this book to watch Blandine have such a strong focus on things that have nothing to do with how she's perceived and not really be thinking about how she's perceived at all. And then see the people moving around her in the world basically perceiving that she's asking for it when bad things happen to her. Like her teacher who's much older and treats her inappropriately or at the books end, even when her housemates are kind of like experimenting on her in kind of a seay way. And, uh, someone else in the building hears her screaming and assumes that she's asking for it. I feel like either that phrase or something close to that phrase is used and I just thought that was such an interesting dichotomy to set up, or even binary just because, um, the direct contrasting of what she is asking for and what other people project that she is asking for because of kind of her unique energy, her youth, her gender, et cetera. Um, yeah, so any, anything you wanna add on that and yeah, would be interesting.
Speaker 6 00:43:58 No, I mean I just, I love that reading and I think that that's a really, um, astute point. Like I, I guess to be young and female within the patriarchy is a kind of, uh, it's sort of to participate in a circus that you never consented to star in. And, um, I think that the kind of attention that she receives, although it's sometimes coveted by other women or, um, even the men, it's, it's like, it's, for her, it's a form of violence that kind of, um, it's, it's a kind of dehumanizing, um, fragmenting attention that kind of, she, I think there's a maybe a line that I cut, I don't even remember if it's still in there, but if it's something about being horribly visible and fully unseen. And I think that that is a really common experience for young women. Um, especially, I mean, you know, this applies across the gender spectrum and the age spectrum, but I think especially targets young women within the patriarchy because it's a sort of, you know, we've all seen this happen in the news in our personal lives among our friends of like, when a woman is, um, sort of the, the subject, the target, the victim of violence, um, the first, especially sexual violence, the first impulse of the, of the sort of public reaction is to say, Well, what was she doing to, to deserve that treatment?
Speaker 6 00:45:22 Like, what was she doing to provoke it? What was, And so it places the onus of, um, of male behavior on her. And so I think like a lot of young women are sort of blamed for, um, yeah, for, for attracting men. And it's, and you know, it, it's far more complicated than that of course cuz like, I think sexual violence really has to do with power and not even has to really do with beauty or attraction. But, um, I think she, yeah, she's, she's in this highly patriarchal place. She is without connection or protection, and she is also kind of refusing to conform to, um, you know, what this place is asking of her. Uh, like I think that young women are sort of told that they cannot be both beautiful and smart. They're not, they're told that they can't be. Um, I don't know, I sort of, her, her desires are so outside of the earthly realm, um, and yet the earthly realm has this purchase over her,
Speaker 5 00:46:32 Um, to kind of dive a little more into what the culture around her is perceiving versus how she is perceiving things. Um, I feel like a really interesting and often funny in a weird way, encapsulation of the other perspectives that people have on issues was found throughout the book in what I kind of grouped as internet writing. So like online comments, online obituaries, the more gels blog post forum posts, and like that both, it's, it, they function basically how the comments sanction section functions in our society now. Like it both sometimes really shows you the worst of people, but also shows you things that are so endearing and personal about people. Um, so yeah, if you could just speak broadly to kind of how you wrote <laugh> Yeah. Using the social conventions of online language and kind of some things you wanted to convey that either weren't necessarily happening in the, you know, flesh and blood characters or ways that you were trying to emphasize those things or double up on them.
Speaker 6 00:47:50 Yeah, I mean, I think, as you said, I'm, I'm really drawn to, to comment sections, especially sort of like corners of the internet off the beaten path, especially because I do think it's a place and under the guise of anonymity, um, people really do show the best and worst of humanity in those environments. Um, and so for a novelist that's very rich material because people are sort of, when you're, when you're free of all the obligations of living in a body and a world and walking around with some identity, with responsibilities to other people in the material world, how do you choose to behave? And for me, the, the, the moments of tenderness and kindness and humor and vulnerability are always so much more meaningful and interesting to me actually than, um, the moments of cruelty and the trolls and the bots and all of that.
Speaker 6 00:48:43 And I think it's sort of like what I was, what I was talking about earlier in terms of, um, the way that contrast can be extremely useful and sort of illuminating the essential, the essential thing of its opposite. And so I, I wanted to include the internet, not only because I just think it's, it's such a part of the daily texture of our, of our lives and it was the, you know, part of my character's lives, but I also think it's sort of operating in the way that a Greek chorus might have operated in like a revenge tragedy. Like there's this sort of interruption of, of like uninformed voices that are sort of commenting on the action at play mm-hmm. <affirmative> and in, in revenge tragedies. And that, yeah, it was like, it was interesting to think about the internet sort of serving that function in daily life now.
Speaker 6 00:49:41 And also this to me is a book about sort of chain collisions and the responsibilities that people have to each other, especially the ways that we can sort of, uh, affect each other without physically interacting in the material world. Um, Joan is a character in this novel who sort of, I think kind of undergoes the most extreme transformation and yet she's one that has almost nothing to do with the plot. Um, she's sort of affected vicariously. And the internet to me is a place where that happens in a very dramatic way. We're all, you can see this, these consequences, the consequences of this sort of immaterial, uh, collision happening online when you look at like anti-vax movements or even just, um, you know, the way that conspiracy theories can, can cause real material harm in the material world. And you also see this through the way that a sort of social movement can, can catch fire online and then change the way that people think and talk about an issue for the better. Um, so yeah, I think if, if I'm, if I, when I was trying to think about chain collisions, I couldn't, I couldn't avoid the internet.
Speaker 5 00:51:01 Yeah. To expand on that a little bit, there was a character, well I considered her a character, um, Elsie, who it is not featured alive in the book at all. Um, j Joan works at a, um, online obituary forum brand doing content moderation. And, um, you as a reader of this book, you get to read many, uh, posts and comments about the obituary left by this child star or fully adult grown child star. Um, and it just gave such a sense of many things, but also not very much at all about this person, depending on how you're perceiving what she's saying online versus what her, uh, fully grown sun is saying online. And it, I think it was just such an interesting undercurrent in the book to watch, um, kind of the perception of others play out on an entirely different plane and scale.
Speaker 6 00:52:02 Hmm. Yeah, yeah. I think, um, LSC kind of came to me because I was, the, the novel was making me think a lot about, um, the kind of brutality of the extraction economy and how that brutality manifests in daily life. And, you know, in this post industrial town, it was a town that was kind of conjured into existence by an industry and then swiftly destroyed by that same industry. And so this was a town that sort of produced vehicles, but what was, I, I guess I was interested in thinking about the forces and the sort of factories that are producing American narratives and dreams and sort of, that made me think about Hollywood and I, I was interested in following the life of someone who had benefited ostensibly from the extraction economy and then trying to examine, um, like even, even in that case when someone has become wealthy and famous, how the extraction economy damages them too, I think like she is the resource, the raw material that's being mined and extracted.
Speaker 6 00:53:14 And so in Elsie's life you can see how her fame, her wealth, her sort of, um, acting career have all, um, corroded her, uh, internally. And she's, you know, at the end of the, of her life, she, she doesn't really have any real relationships to speak of. She's haunted by the way that she's treated her son. She, she's far from happy. And, um, yeah, so it just made me think a lot about not only perception versus reality, cuz of course this is a like highly beloved child actress who has at least publicly performed, um, virtue and likability and goodness and then in her private life has been, um, quite narcissistic and damaging. And it's, yeah. And then it also made me think about how the forces that have made that happen, um,
Speaker 5 00:54:11 Yeah, absolutely. Um, I think that the conversations in this book about, you know, extraction perception, how those things are intertwined, um, are so relevant to our culture right now, both because of the amount of time that people are financially and socially obligated to be online, as well as um, just generally the way that people have been spending more time online since Covid 19 took away a lot of people's social opportunities and kind of restructured how people spend their time to a degree. Um, and I just as a parting question, <laugh> wanna both celebrate the fact that your book is on the national book award list. I'm so excited. This is absolutely a book I've been recommending to people and saying is really unique. So, um, cheering for you and, um, folks who love to read, uh, books that are getting exciting nominations and prestige, you should definitely pick this up. Um, but as a closing question, I just wanna ask, um, what did you want to do with this book, um, as someone who loves to read and write that you either haven't necessarily seen in a book before or what did you want to homage on and expand on that you've seen from other books and writers that you love?
Speaker 6 00:55:33 Oh wow. That's a great question. Um, I think I, the only thing that I was trying to do that I hadn't really seen done very, very often, not that it's never been done, is that it's just I wanted to, um, to create a portrait of the post industrial Midwest that felt real to me and felt specific to me. Cause I think sometimes when that area of the world is sort of represented, it's represented as a any town in nowhere in, in, you know, nowhere Indiana or whatever. And, um, and to me these are places that are precise and real vast, mysterious complex. Interesting. And, you know, worthy of narration. And I think growing up in such a town, I kind of received the impression that whatever happened to us, there was not worthy of other people's attention. When you don't see your lives reflected you, you just assume, yeah, they're not worthy of reflection.
Speaker 6 00:56:29 But as I got older, I realized that, that the sort of absence of those narratives was a really good reason to try to contribute one. And of course it's just one. And I think I was, yeah, I was really, really devoted to the idea of making this a really, a very particular, um, experience that was rooted in, in things that I cared about and loved. And I hope that others will join. Cause of course there are lots and lots of lives happening in lots of different cities in this region. Um, and I think one thing that I was trying to sort of build upon from the work that I loved, or at least a draw from in the work that I loved is, um, this, I'm thinking of Middle March and n w by, by Zady Smith and even Infinite Jazz by David Foster Wallace and I Hotel by Karen Ashita, and visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan and, and so many others. And, you know, some of my favorite writers are also kind of pros, poetry hybrid writers like Claudia Rankin and Maggie Nelson and Ann Carson. And so I think what all of those writers are doing, uh, I I think they're all bringing a kind of generosity to their narration. A sort of refusal to stay put in the, the superficial confines of one's own perspective. And whether or not fiction makes you more empathetic. I think the jury's out on that. I don't, I don't really believe it's like inherently virtuous
Speaker 5 00:57:55 Agreed
Speaker 6 00:57:56 <laugh> though, that it's, I I do think that, that it gives us at least an opportunity to sort of think outside of yeah, our own superficial realm of experience and try to imagine vividly what it's like to be somebody else. Um, those are the books that always excite me the most. And I think they're the books that kind of teach you new ways of seeing, which is the best gift a book can give you. And so it's, when I'm writing, I'm trying to keep that sort of model of, of fiction in mind.
Speaker 5 00:58:27 Yes. Thank you for writing a unique, personal, empathetic, weird, funny Midwestern novel <laugh> you, as you're probably aware, we're based in Minneapolis and, um, we have some pretty interesting culture in media and such here. And it's, it's always disappointing to hear, you know, your Midwestern also in origin. Like, it's disappointing to hear your state or your culture be crushed into all these other ones and or even just to see an area as a monolith. Like even just here in Minneapolis, there are a variety of cultures, both kind of just social, but also indigenous cultures, different, um, groups of immigrants or people of different heritages and yeah. Um, it's just nice to have someone <laugh>, uh, writing and thinking and sharing. Um, just a Midwest that's weird and real and yeah, as, as fake as it is, it's equally real, in my opinion. <laugh>,
Speaker 6 00:59:30 Thank you so much for saying that. Yeah, I mean, I think that's frustrating to me too, and especially with politicians or sort of coastal cultures, treat the Midwest as though it's monolithic, as you said, and as though it's home to one kind of person. Usually that person is profiled to be like a working class white man and voted for Trump. And it's like actually the, the Midwest is more diverse than the US is on average, and there are lots of other people there. And if they're ignored, like that's a huge, uh, tragedy for, for America, really.
Speaker 5 00:59:59 Absolutely. There, there's such big opportunities with like land justice and food justice with Native Americans and different, um, ethnicities in the Midwest and all over the country. And it's depressing to just have everyone think that <laugh>, everyone in the Midwest is like a, a 48 year old corn farmer <laugh>. Yeah. Even, even though obviously those people are real and they, they make the corn chips that I know and love <laugh>. Yeah. It's like, you know,
Speaker 6 01:00:26 Those people matter too, but yeah, there's more than just that.
Speaker 5 01:00:29 Yeah.
Speaker 6 01:00:30 Yeah.
Speaker 5 01:00:31 Absolutely. Well, I think this is our time. Thank you so much for being on the show, Tess. It was really great to meet you.
Speaker 6 01:00:37 Thank you for having me. I really appreciated your questions.
Speaker 5 01:00:40 Thank you.
Speaker 1 01:00:44 You are listening to Right On Radio on K F A I FM 90.3 and streaming live on the
[email protected] on Dave Fed. I'd like to thank our special guests tonight, Emerald Garner and Testie, and all of our listeners. Without your support and donations, k a i and right on radio would not be possible. You can find more news and information about Right on radio kfa slash episodes on Spotify, iTunes, Apple podcast, and so on. Please stay tuned.
