Speaker 1 00:00:05 You are listening to right on radio on K F a I 90.3, FM and streaming live on the
[email protected]. I'm Annie, for this exciting episode, Josh and David are gonna talk with two authors from Minneapolis based publishing house, flexible press, Diane TZ, and Karen Lebo. Josh will talk with Jaz in the first part of the hour to discuss her novel ready, said, oh, sit against the upheavals of the sixties at Chronicles with struggles of a man who just lost his draft deferment a young pregnant woman with fragile mental health and a UFO chasing astronomer in the last part of the hour. Dave talks with Bo about her novel secret waltz. Secret waltz fall is the coming of age journeys of three teens whose lives returned upside down by the secrets they keep in the end secret. Walt asks us if you have a secret, do you still get to be good? All this and more so stay tuned to right on radio.
Speaker 2 00:01:08 All right, Diane, can you hear me?
Speaker 3 00:01:11 I can hear you
Speaker 2 00:01:12 Welcome everyone to write on radio, Diane. Um, if you are ready, you can begin with your first reading.
Speaker 3 00:01:19 Thank you. Okay. Um, so to begin, it's the summer of 1967. Uh, our Herot is 21 years old and he's just, um, left medical school for reasons. No one, but he, uh, understands the war in Vietnam is raging and he is, um, due to be drafted his grandfather. His mother's father has just died and there is a big problem, um, because, uh, the undertaker has forgotten the dead man's top hat, uh, sot, um, has been tasked to put the hat on the man's head, uh, at the funeral home. And so that's where this chapter begins. Uh, it's called the watch Tina knelt before the coffin angling the hat one way and then another papao looked ready for a fight. Is Jen jutting up and out as if he were already at the Pearl gates arguing his case with St. Peter, or was it a different, holy bureaucrat standing there checking off names in a book.
Speaker 3 00:02:12 Tina could never remember temping down his revulsion. He slipped a hand beneath the old man's head. It would be tricky to lift without making a pig's breakfast of the Undertaker's work, a chemical whiff rose from the body spiriting Tino back to St. Louis, where he'd spent the autumn hacking at a pickled cadaver. The professor had mocked Tino's INEP dissections lifting the ravaged tissues with the, with a scalpel, a pencil point, a chopstick from his lunch. So what do you call this one? Tuda gastro anemia, pop Lial, Mickey mouse, all the structures looked the same and nothing like the illustrations and Gray's anatomy. By the time Chino finished, he was half pickled himself and the stink never came. Never no longer came off in the shower. When the class was finally over, he burned his lab clothes. The smoke smelled worse than for Malda Hyde, but unlike for Malahide, it just blew away.
Speaker 3 00:03:00 Gravel crunched in the parking lot. The noise of his family arriving early birds getting the day sad worm. Do you know, nudged the hat again. If he failed at this task, his mother would give him hell. If he got it really wrong, saved by losing the hat or allowing it to be crushed after carelessly, setting it on the chair where his big cousin Aldo was about to take a load off. You would never hear the end of it still. He saw no clear path, his goal. Oh, well, he thought I tried. He said the hat on Papa's chest and tiptoed backward as if his grandfather's body were alive grenade as if the hat were it's pin. I hate to disturb you. Tina started while he'd been lost in his thoughts, Mr. Cari, the undertaker had crept up on him. Easy does it. Mr. Cari arrested his heavy hand on Tina's shoulder, properly speaking.
Speaker 3 00:03:45 It should be on his head. He paused considering, you know, I might have something in the office that could help with this. Mr. Cari left his jacket, Vand flapping on his way out. He passed Tina's mother who seeing Tina at the casket blanched beneath her makeup. Tina felt the assessment in his tightening chest. He was screwing up as usual. She pointed to the door where coat hooks lined part of the wall. Tina hurried over intending to catch the hat on a hook and be done with it. No such luck. The hook missing a bracket, screw twisted in the wall and tip the hat to the floor crouching to NAB the fugitive. Tina discovered instead the missing bracket, screw rolling from side to side on the carpet in a dime-sized puddle of light. His mother's black pump pumps crossed his field of vision. And then her face appeared seemingly younger by a decade.
Speaker 3 00:04:30 The effect of being upside down. You think a boy, your age could manage just one simple thing. His mother, his one simple thing. Tina heaved himself to his feet and back toward the lobby. Muttering apologies. He knew by heart, there were advantages to having a hardened one a year ago. He would've resented his mother for all of it from the absurd task that she had set him to the insult. She had just lobbed his way, but his days of petty philio grievance were behind him. He was in a new country now beyond her good opinion.
Speaker 2 00:05:00 If you're just tuning in that was Diane Joseph Seitz reading from her debut novel ready, said, oh, a story said against the upheaval of the sixties, that Chronicles the struggles oft a man who's lost his draft deferment. His young pregnant girlfriend, primroses was fragile, mental health and Lupo, a UFO chasing astronomer. Joseph Seitz. His fiction in essays have appeared in conjunctions fence Dame LA review of books, and elsewhere as a historian, she has coauthored two histories of Egyptology, the riddle of Rosetta and the Zodiac of Paris. She serves as a review editor of a necessary fiction and director of communications for swing left road island, a progressive political organization, focused on electoral work, voter protection and voting rights. Diane, welcome to round radio.
Speaker 3 00:05:46 Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2 00:05:47 So the title of your book is really unique for me. Uh, I mean typically when I, when I read a book and, and I come to have a conversation with the author about it, I use it as an anchor for discussing the interior of a book. But when I say the title in my head while I was reading it, it, it always, always sounds like I like I'm disappointed without trying to be <laugh>. I was wondering <laugh> it makes me wonder, like what the O is supposed to signify. Was that your attention at all, when you came up with the title,
Speaker 3 00:06:13 Now, the title is an interesting story because, um, the title was not the first, my first choice for a title. Uh, the first, my first choice for the title was very different. Um, and, uh, my publisher actually came up, uh, with the title. It's the last, um, it's the last few words of the book and it is a statement of disappointment, but I think by the time you get to that point, uh, you realize that it's also a statement of, um, wisdom on some level. Um, and it comes from, uh, the, it comes through the consciousness of a character. We haven't talked about named Nora, uh, who is a good friend of, um, of primroses, one of our, our main characters and also functions as a bit of the conscience of the novel.
Speaker 2 00:06:54 This book begins with a quote from Italian Ginsburg's book, winter in the Abruzzi. I was wondering to talk about the significance of that piece and how it relates to the book. Is that something you were channeling the consciousness of the book from that little piece you have at the beginning?
Speaker 3 00:07:09 Yeah, I'm a huge fan of, um, of Natalie Ginsburg. Um, I've read a great deal of her work and I was reading, I came across it really for the first time as I was writing this book at the first draft many years ago. And one of the things I like about Natalie Ginsburg is, um, her clarity when it comes to, um, life's disappointments. Uh, she's a very, she's very good on, um, on that topic and how we make a life, uh, despite, um, muddling through lots and lots of disappointments and by making life, I mean, making a really meaningful and rich, um, life, despite all the disappointments that are around us and, um, the essay winter and the Abruzzi actually does create a beautiful picture of a very disappointing, uh, life and a disappointing landscape. And so, um, I was very, very pleased to, um, to run across what I thought was kind of a prey of the, um, the characters in this, um, book and their disappointing situations and the, the good things that they make out of them.
Speaker 2 00:08:05 I loved how you opened the book detailing the Undertaker's handling of the body of Tina's grandfather, Tabo, Brent ESI, one of the, the main character's grandfather. And what I loved was that you, you treat his body as something that could still be a point frustration for the people. I mean, when this is happening, when the Undertaker's handling it, he, it brings up all these stories in him about coming over. And even at the way, family members, they can't help make adjustments to his body, to his pin, or like he's top of the top hat issue at the very beginning. Um, his body almost becomes like a prop and it's kind of funny, funny how the characters respond to that. I was wondering what your thoughts were on that.
Speaker 3 00:08:45 Well, um, so to start with, with a character who's, um, dead, uh, I, I, I, I, I, wasn't so sure, um, to begin with, uh, with that scene, uh, but, uh, uh, what I liked about it was how undead the, um, the body was, what it gets at is this moment of it's like a threshold moment, um, both for Tao who's passing over, um, and also Fortino, um, eventually becomes a threshold moment as well. Tina is coming back from school, the, um, person, he was the ambitious, um, person with the very promising future ahead of him. That person is also just about dead. And, um, there was something about, uh, that movement from, um, a period of, um, of open horizons of lots of life ahead of you that, um, is suddenly shut down Fortino. And also obviously for Tao, uh, they, they seem to merge in that moment.
Speaker 3 00:09:37 They have a lot in common. So I wanted to start with the dead man. I had a second, um, uh, motivation there as well, uh, because talking about Tao made it possible for me to talk about, um, Chino's whole world, uh, which is, um, a world of, uh, of Italian immigrants in Providence, Rhode Island, uh, in 1967. Uh, and they've been there perhaps 50 years. Uh, they, it's an immigrant grant community that is putting down some pretty serious roots, but at the same time, the memories, um, of, of immigration are very present, uh, and the friendships that are made, um, in that very li liminal state, um, those are also very present and alive in this, um, in this world, uh, which is passing away.
Speaker 2 00:10:19 So I wanna talk about that more with you. So, I mean, Tina's family, uh, especially his mother she's affectionate, but she's also very hard on him and she's always expecting him to make the right decisions, the ones that she thinks that he should make for the family to respect their wishes, how much ever did it take for you to strike this balance with the characters close to Tina, wanting what's best for him, and because they do care about him, but in a way where it always feels like he they're where at least he feels like they're holding him back. Was it hard for you to find balance?
Speaker 3 00:10:49 Yeah, I, yeah, it was, it wasn't too hard. Honestly. I, I really, um, felt very clear about, um, particularly Tina's parents and what they wanted for him and how those problems, how their, their expectations created problems. Uh, for him, I did wanna bring that out. Uh, and I also wanted to bring out how, how much trouble those expectations also made when it came to, um, the stuff that Tina did that involved. Other people, for instance, his girlfriend, uh, who has parents of her own, uh, who also have expectations. And, um, it was, it was interesting to put those sets of expectations and conversation with one another, and then allow these two Cal characters to, um, to find places of freedom together, uh, from those sets of expectations.
Speaker 2 00:11:32 Does Tino's family, does it bear any resemblance to your family or any families you had close contact with growing up?
Speaker 3 00:11:39 <laugh> I refuse answer that it's a world. I know very well. I can say that.
Speaker 2 00:11:49 Have you had family read your book and have they commented? Have they seen themselves at all in, in this book?
Speaker 3 00:11:54 Um, yes and no. Um, you know, people see different things in the book and, you know, it's not really up to me to say, you know, okay. To, to determine like how anyone reads the book or what they, um, what they take, uh, what they take from it. I feel like so far so good in terms of what people have found in the book. Um, no one is, you know, cut me off or stopped talking to me <laugh> yet <laugh>. Um, but yeah, you know, a long time ago, a writer, uh, by the name of Chris Offit, uh, he, um, he was talking to me about this, um, exact problem. Like, what do you do with people who seem to resemble your characters or feel like they do? And he said something to me, he said, Diane, he said, the people you write about, um, they will never see themselves in your book because they don't see themselves period. <laugh>,
Speaker 2 00:12:39 That's actually really, wow. That's actually profound.
Speaker 3 00:12:42 Um, I felt very safe after that.
Speaker 2 00:12:44 Yeah. So, um, Primrose, um, she's, she's a girlfriend of the main of oft one of the main characters in this book. And it mentioned, it's mentioned very early in the book that she had been committed to a mental institution for a chemical imbalance in her brain where she receives electrical shock therapy and other forms of experimental, um, treatment. And I was wondering to talk about little of your research into that for her character. How much did you do for her
Speaker 3 00:13:11 Quite a bit, actually, um, in terms of just finding out, uh, what was, um, what would be a standard treatment, uh, for someone who maybe couldn't afford, you know, um, the top of the line, uh, doctors, or, um, couldn't get to, um, a cutting edge clinic, you know, what would be done for, um, for a young woman in that, um, in that situation, what could her family do? Um, what would they be worried about and also what her doctors might do? Um, and, and, and I looked into particularly like in Rhode Island, what kinds of treatments were available, uh, for folks, uh, in 1967? And I discovered some pretty hair raising things. I mean, the, we pack were real, uh, treatment electric shop, electro shock therapy was pretty standard. Uh, and it's not like it is, um, today, which I understand is, um, it's a more, it's a gentler, um, kind of electro shock, I don't know. Um, but, uh, in those days it was, um, a pretty serious, pretty serious kind of, um, intervention. And it could leave you with all kinds of side effects, like lost memory and really bad headaches, uh, stuff like that. So, um, I, I did look into that, um, that treatment and what it's after effects might be, and it does have after effects on primroses. Um, she does lose bits and bits and pieces of her memory and stuff
Speaker 2 00:14:24 Like that. And she's a really sharp and actually really interesting character. I, I loved any kind of time we spent with her in the book. She's also, she's writing a book with her friend, the book of love in order to tell, I'm gonna quote this from the book, the primitive and vulnerable truth about sex and to demolish all pink and white laed edge allusions. What I liked about this and how her and Nora writing this it's emblematic. I think of everything their, her parents probably feared and that they mm-hmm <affirmative>, they like sex and they, they wanna talk about it and put it into a book <laugh> you could talk about where you got the idea for this, and also the readers as well. What's fun. This book is she, you also have excerpts of their book in this novel. Yeah. And it's always fun to read them.
Speaker 3 00:15:05 Yeah. Um, the, you know, the idea for that, I think just kind of grew up organically as I was developing these characters and their friendship. I was thinking about their friendship and how they would communicate one of the, the things, some of the things they might play with. And, um, certainly they are both, uh, bookish characters. They will both love to read and they, um, of course they would use their reading, uh, to inform their ideas about what sex is about cuz neither one of them is having particularly a lot of sex. Um, you know, Primrose is having some sex with Tina. Um, Nora's never had any sex at all. And so all she knows is what she's gotten from, um, from primroses and from her reading. So I thought would be interesting as I developed these characters to, um, to show what they've, you know, what they make of this, uh, this new experience.
Speaker 3 00:15:53 I mean, I'm in F Rose's case or something that, that Nora is looking forward to. And, um, the book of love is, was one way to, um, to surface those, um, conversations and those thoughts and feelings. I mean, and certainly, you know, growing up myself, you know, I, you know, I talked a lot with my friends. I still do, you know, much more so than with my parents. You know, this seemed perfectly natural to have a, you know, a conversation about sex and, and have, make it be an ongoing one. Um, you know, in, in notes and notebooks,
Speaker 2 00:16:23 Lupo light is a, his, this character, he makes his first appearance in chapter seven and we discovered that he is studying astronomy, which made me wonder, was a subject that, that holds a special interest for you at all.
Speaker 3 00:16:36 Yes. Um, I'm very interested in astronomy. Um, my, um, my PhD is in, uh, the history of science, uh, believe it or not, um, many years ago. Um, and the, um, the topic I focused on was in the history of, um, 19th century astronomy, uh, and, um, earth, uh, sciences. And so it was very interested in that, um, subject in my twenties. So I think some of that interest is carried over into the book, but I think the, um, the other piece that's informing Lupo is that I was, as I was, um, putting that first draft together, uh, I discovered, um, a cash of, of articles, uh, about UFO sightings in Rhode Island in the summer of 1967. Uh, there was a magazine called probe that was published out of wins socket, Rhode Island. And it was an international magazine that collected, uh, reports of UFO sightings.
Speaker 3 00:17:23 And it, it was centered on the set of sightings, uh, that took place in, um, in 1967 in, in, uh, Rhode Island. And so I became very interested in why it would be, um, why UFOs would suddenly seem to be present in Rhode Island at this incredibly fraught political and social time. And I began to think about how I would work those into the book. And of course then, um, Lupo, uh, kind of showed up as someone who would be the most unlikely UFO reporter, uh, of all in Rhode Island. And so that's, um, the story of where Lupo came from
Speaker 2 00:18:01 In those journals, did you discover, was there any mention of dolphins having, making access with Ray transmissions and using that to somehow reach the UFO science
Speaker 3 00:18:10 <laugh>?
Speaker 2 00:18:10 Cause I would love that.
Speaker 3 00:18:12 No, no. The dolphin is a gesture, uh, to a book from, I believe it was published in the eighties. Um, that, that was also set in the sixties called, um, easy travels to other planets and it featured a dolphin and, um, some research that was being done with the dolphin who was oddly sentient, uh, and almost almost human, uh, this novel, uh, was by Ted Ted Mooney, I believe. And, um, the original title actually of already said, oh, was easy Izzy journeys to other planets. Uh, and it was, it was a riff on Ted Mooney's novel from, uh, from, from way back in the eighties, uh, that did have this dolphin at the center of
Speaker 2 00:18:50 It. I'm gonna look that up. I'm I'm not familiar with that.
Speaker 3 00:18:53 It's super fun. It's really fun. It'll blow your mind. It's a very funny novel.
Speaker 2 00:18:56 You, you definitely handle, I telling the story of multiple characters in your you're very thoughtful about how you, you handled them. You give equal attention to, I think there are their personal struggles. And I was wondering if you could talk about, did you, did you plot out ahead of time of how you wanted to write each of these chapters and how you wanted to talk about these characters or did this just naturally evolve over time?
Speaker 3 00:19:19 Oh, I'm gonna say a terrible thing. Um, okay, so <laugh>, I don't plot,
Speaker 2 00:19:23 No, this is great place to talk about terrible stuff. Go for it. <laugh>
Speaker 3 00:19:26 And I didn't, I didn't, I knew almost nothing about plot when I wrote this book. Um, I've since I hope learned a little bit more, but, um, I wrote this book in, in, uh, the first part of the two thousands. And, um, I was in, uh, my MFA program at the time and I had a teacher who said, you don't need anything. You don't need to know anything about plot. He said, plot is just suspending information. And as long as you keep a clock ticking on the story and that's primroses pregnancy, and as long as you keep suspending information withholding some of the story from the reader, you will have enough of this thing called plot. And, um, so I did the best I could with that, um, that advice. Uh, and so I, I didn't plot it, but I did write a very fast first draft. So I had within six or eight months of having the first idea for the novel, I had finished the first draft. So I knew where it was going pretty quickly
Speaker 2 00:20:21 Throughout the book. Tino was repairing a boat that he's gonna use. At least that's how we led with the Raiders to Dodge, getting drafted in the Vietnam war. And I was wondering to talk about how, how common was it? People like Latino in the sixties around this time who tried to use this approach of taking a boat going across lake, um, Champlain into Canada?
Speaker 3 00:20:44 <laugh> I don't know. I don't think it was very common at all. I mean, mean, I do think the boat is Fortino. What the book of love is for primroses, they're these symbolic objects that they use to kind of, um, cast their way into a future. And they manipulate these objects. They play with them, think about them. Uh, and Tina's case it's a big, it's a boat. So he, you know, he, he drives it around and, and I won't ruin, uh, the ending, um, of that story, but, um, you know, he does take it out. And so, um, you know, they do stuff with these objects, but I, I don't, I can't imagine, you know, too many people getting across lake champ plan on a little tiny, uh, Ram shackle leaky boat, like UMT is planning to do.
Speaker 2 00:21:24 I'm glad you said that because the whole time was raining. I kept seeing the, the less of the Bo actually being a destination they're trying to get to. And just the Bo's more of distraction, I think, reality and probably confront their issues. That's to me, that's what it felt like reading his character. Mm-hmm,
Speaker 3 00:21:36 <affirmative>, I'm glad that came across because these, um, these characters do have all kinds of problems with reality, uh, for better and worse. And, um, one of the things the book I think is deeply about is, is illusion and, um, how you can fall into illusions, get stuck in them, uh, do well with that. Or maybe sometimes not so well. Um, but then reality kind of always comes and shows up and it's either very reassuring or it slaps you in the face or both. And you know, that all of these things happen to these, these characters.
Speaker 2 00:22:04 And my last question for you, what's next for you? Diane, do you have another novel <laugh>
Speaker 3 00:22:10 I have, um, I actually have a novella coming out, uh, from a press in North Carolina. Uh, it's called, uh, the press is called Regal house and, um, the Nove has a French title it's called lair to, to, uh, which means basically the spirit of the age. And it is, um, it's not about the same characters, but it takes place in the same neighborhood. And it focuses on a 15 year old girl who lives there in the eighties. Um, and, uh, she, um, is just starting to come out of that stage of childhood where she's starting to realize the world exists around her, the way she can intervene in adult ways in the world. And at, just as she's coming to this awareness, one of her neighbors is shot and is it turns out her parents are involved in this murder and she's this. So the, the novel is about her discovery. Um, just as she's sort of discovering herself as an, as a, as a new adult herself as a sexual person, she's also discovering her parents as these murderers. And so, um, so that's what the book is, is about. And that's coming in January, 2024, uh, from Regal house,
Speaker 2 00:23:12 I've been talking with Diane Jo SETHS about her debut novel ready, said, oh, from flexible press, oh, surely Dave fed talks with Karen Lee about her novel secret waltz, but first a few announcements and our literary calendar. Diane, thanks so much for being on the show.
Speaker 3 00:23:26 Thank you.
Speaker 2 00:23:28 And now this
Speaker 4 00:23:48 You, hello? Hello everyone. And welcome back. I'm Dave Feig and I am here with Karen Lee boron. Hi, Karen.
Speaker 5 00:23:54 Hi. How are you?
Speaker 4 00:23:55 Great, lovely to have you here. And let us tell us where you're calling us from placement.
Speaker 5 00:24:00 Um, I am in Bayview, Milwaukee. Um, okay. Uh, I'm on my book tour and, uh, I'm gonna read a little from the beginning of the book where there's a train and I'm hearing a train in the background right here. There's one passing actually.
Speaker 4 00:24:15 Isn't that wonderful. Very militude. I love that. Okay. So yes, we will start with your reading. So, but before you do that, of course, you're gonna set us up, uh, maybe give us a general overview of secret waltz, too. Uh, whatever you think we need, uh, to know about the story before we dive in and then, uh, have you,
Speaker 5 00:24:31 Okay. Um, the story takes place in 1966 in a fictional town called, uh, Buckhorn, Wisconsin, which is based on the, uh, area south of Milwaukee, where I grew up. And it is, uh, a sort of dance of three voices, um, 17 year old Sonya, um, who has received the first scholarship to the major university for a high, hard science that's ever been awarded to a girl. Um, the, uh, she's also pregnant. So 1966, that's a pretty dire situation for her. Yeah. Um, uh, also Leo who is 15, his father is a very well known, famous, charismatic PO musician. He also is an aspiring musician, but to another kind of music mm-hmm <affirmative>, um, and Amelia who we meet on her 15th birthday as the book opens AME, and Leo are friends. They're good friends, but they do not know Sonya at the opening of the book, but very quickly their lives begin to intertwine in, uh, hopefully interesting ways.
Speaker 4 00:25:45 Yes they do. They certainly do. Okay. Wonderful. Thank you for that description of secret waltz. And, um, how about your reading? Sure. Do you wanna set us? Absolutely. I'm gonna set us up for where are you gonna introduce?
Speaker 5 00:25:56 I'm gonna begin at the beginning of the book. Oh, that's what you saying. And we're gonna begin, uh, with Sonya, um, she needs a full moon and a midnight train at three minutes before midnight with the tail feathers of winter, still fluttering Sonia Mauro balances on a single rail of the train tracks behind the Carlson's bean field, listening for the union, Pacifics 1202 Cheyenne Milwaukee line. She's gotta be on the track at the first vibrations of the train or the ghost mother won't come. And who else can she turn to? She doesn't know the kind of people who would know the kind of people who would help her. She doesn't know anyone who will help her. She's trapped like a March hair. She thinks not sure the phrase is right. No, she realizes it's not right mad as a March hair tonight, both are true.
Speaker 5 00:26:57 August of wind unbalances her, but determined not to fall. She throws her arms wide. According to the tail, if she falls now, it won't work. She's gotta be on the track at the train's first vibration. Also be barefoot and stay until the heat and smoke choke. You stay until you're coughing until your eyes burn and hot tears. Streak your cheeks stay until the arms of death pull you close only when it's life or death, when it's you or nothing then, and only then can you jump if you miscalculate or chicken out, if you jump, when you're first spot, the train's headlight, the ghost mother will steal your soul instead of your baby. And as you jump, you have to scream at a throat scraping volume to be heard over the engine mother, mother of the night, carry my child into light. Of course, many of the details are fictional trappings there to entice you into doing something foolishly dangerous, but stay on the track. That's the key detail of the story. The part that stands to reason, parsing the story from the science. She hypothesizes that the vibrations of the train will be mighty teeth, splitting fetus jarring added to this are the trauma of waiting until the last moment, the effort of jumping the violence of landing. So she has to be brave. She has to be steel, cold eyed. She has to believe in the heat and the headlight and the vibrations of the train. She has to endure her teeth being knocked to sawdust until her very visceral loosen.
Speaker 4 00:28:54 Wow. And, and I mean, wow, uh, beautiful writing power powerfully read by Karen Lee, born from her new novel secret walls. Uh, Karen writes fiction and nonfiction. Her novel girls in peril was the premier publication for the tin house, new voices series. Congratulations on that Karen and to barn's and noble discover selection. Her novel month of fire was a finalist for the new American press book contest. And her story collection, mother tongue was published by new rivers rivers press in 2015, she has been nominated for a push card prize and is the winner of the 2018 wonder grower wonder additions fiction prize, congrats on your marvelous career. And I mean, that that's
Speaker 5 00:29:33 Wonderful. Well, thanks so much.
Speaker 4 00:29:35 <laugh> yeah, it, it really is a beautifully written book. I I'm glad you read that. And frankly, I wanted you to keep reading. It's a great, great opening chapter and it's, it's really a powerful way to get introduced into these young people's, um, uh, lives increasingly complex lives. So let's begin there, if we can. Let's talk about the structure you hinted at this. Um, when you told us about, uh, the overview, when you gave us an overview of the novel, but you chose to write, uh, each chapter is named, uh, this one was named Sonya because it's from it's about Sonya from Sonya's point of view. And the next one is, um, well at any rate I've lost track of Leo, Leo, thank you. And so on and so forth. So why did you choose to go this route, Karen, in terms of telling your story alternating chapter's point of view?
Speaker 5 00:30:23 Uh it's yeah. And it's a very, um, clean pattern as it were in that it is a 1, 2, 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3, which, um, is, uh, similar to the polka. Um, and I, I just really wanted those three voices. They each have their own story. They each have their own story arc. They each have their own secrets to, um, try not to tell that they can't secrets. They can't tell, but also secrets that they wanna discover. Um, and I just really wanted a, a book that had a structure where you started with these, uh, somewhat divergent points and you sort of braided them in and it is really a braided structure. Yeah. Um, uh, you know, it's a very evenly braided structure throughout
Speaker 4 00:31:09 The book. So we love to talk about the craft of writing on this show. And, uh, uh you're I don't know if you teach creative writing.
Speaker 5 00:31:17 Uh, I do. Yeah. So
Speaker 4 00:31:18 Did you come at this idea from the beginning, when, when did this idea come to you that you would write it in this way? 1, 2, 3, which is also a nice wall beat, um, uh, was that from the start?
Speaker 5 00:31:28 Thank you for the assist there. <laugh>
Speaker 4 00:31:30 <laugh>
Speaker 5 00:31:31 I was just familiar with the walls since I am the P
Speaker 4 00:31:33 <laugh> given the title. Um, I wanna talk more about the titles. It it's perfect, but, um, so did that come first, uh, or, uh, the story as you saw it playing out, or did this character speak to you as they often do to authors?
Speaker 5 00:31:46 Well, the thing that came first was this story of the ghost train, um, right. That, uh, Amelia has in a very different kind of light. There is an actual, um, kind of ghost train that I read about, uh, some kids on a track who were, you know, sort of playing with this idea of the ghost train, who actually got killed by the train. Um, but the book actually really, um, started out very differently. Um, it met, uh, the, the characters who are 15 in this book. Um, the four characters who are friends, uh, in their thirties after they had gone through the sixties, gone through the seventies, and now they were sort of coming up for air and trying to figure out who they were in the eighties, but it, um, became, uh, clear that their backs stories hadn't resolved enough. And, um, that I needed to go back and write that book first. Yeah. Um, so then, uh, I really wanted to introduce Sonny's voice. And so it really was, um, a bit of trial and error before I came up with the structure that I solidly landed on.
Speaker 4 00:32:52 Was it a challenge for you to write in the voice of these young people? Uh,
Speaker 5 00:32:58 Well, I wanted to try to get it right. Um, which meant that I wanted to try to, I mean, I was born in 64, so 66 is still a bit of a stretch for me. Right. But I wanted the voice to be right for 1966. Yep. Um, I wanted them to be 15 in 1966. Yeah. Um, which is very different from being, you know, 15 and, and 17 now. Right. Um, but once I knew the characters, once I realized who they were as characters and they started moving and living on the page, um, then the voices came pretty easily.
Speaker 4 00:33:38 Did you have to do much research to set them back in time or, uh, did what you just say sort of work for you that is to say once you figured out who they were and where they were, and, and it sounds like maybe you're familiar with Milwaukee. So you had some confidence about placing them somewhere. Um, you were off to the races or did you have to do, did you do a lot of reading about the sixties and, and young people?
Speaker 5 00:33:59 Well, um, it is historically accurate in a lot of ways. Mm-hmm, <affirmative>, um, I did an awful lot of reading about the history of both birth control, conception, the laws around that, about Roe Wade, um, about what women encountered at that time. Right. Um, and then I also wanted to make sure the musical references were correct. Yes. Um, so I was pretty, I, I might have played fast and loose with months. Yep. But I certainly never played fast. There's nothing that's mentioned here that hasn't in this book that hasn't been released musically by 1966. Yeah. Um, I was really very, um, strict with myself about that. Okay. Um, and then, you know, some of the other things, you know, it's, it's, you can be anachronistic really quickly, which is to put something in that doesn't belong in that time period. Yes. And I just, um, I hope I got it right. Ah, yes. Um, but I, I tried my very best not to put in anything that wasn't authentic to the period.
Speaker 4 00:34:59 It feels really good to me. It really does. Um, so the title secret waltz to me is, is really great secret, obviously because <laugh>, the secrets are revealed in this book and waltz being a dance, uh, and these characters perform some sort of dance around each other over, over the course of time. Um, so I think it's lovely. Um, but music, as you suggested earlier, uh, is a big part of these characters lives. And, uh, it's a big theme if you will, the book. So you wanna talk to us about in a little more, a little more deeply about each character's relationship to music and, um, how, why it matters.
Speaker 5 00:35:36 Well Leo's relationship to music is really the strongest. And, um, so is his father's, uh, his father is a, um, a well known locally P musician. And I think what people don't realize about this form of ethnic music is that it was a financial force in the fifties and sixties. Huh. It was at least as financially lucrative as popular music as country music. Um, there's a recording studio, that's in the book silo records, that's based on an actual recording studio, CAH records, mm-hmm <affirmative> um, that, uh, uh, was a, you know, very much the way it appears in the book. It was in the middle of Wisconsin, you know, the, the, the middle of the, um, the miton as it were. Yep. Um, and, uh, you know, black musicians from Chicago, jazz musicians would come up, um, blues musicians, they would come, they would record there.
Speaker 5 00:36:35 They would press the record, give you the cover. You would drive away with the record. And so a lot of folks came to this huh. Recording studio to, um, to, to have records done that they didn't want their labels to have mm-hmm <affirmative> um, it was a really strong force. So stash the Leo's father being a, a local musician, um, it's a powerful thing yeah. In his life. Yeah. And so you have the, the concurrent at the sixties really is when you have these concurrent musical forms sort of reaching, uh, evenness. And then of course, uh, the polka ethnic music starts to diminish and, uh, rock and roll comes up. Um, so that tension, I think that Leo has with his father was a common tension of the time between the, the, the generations. And that's what I really wanted it to be a vehicle to explore that tension between the generations that's beginning to occur in the sixties. Yeah.
Speaker 4 00:37:35 And Leo music of course, is a connector, as you say, or suggests with, uh, between Leo and his father. Uh, that's some glue if you will, but, um, there's, there's other tensions there, obviously. Um, yeah. Yeah. I don't know how much we wanna talk about that, but maybe we'll come back to Leo, uh, Leo and his father. Um, and how about the other two in music?
Speaker 5 00:37:57 Well, they're, they're a little bit less connected to it. Um, uh, that's not their primary focus. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, um, you, but they have other, other things that they're coping with. They're dealing with other things, uh, secrets. And, um, for Amelia, she grows up with her aunts. Yeah. And they live over a bakery and her aunts, um, have raised her in this bakery essentially. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And so one of the things I really wanted to represent was that time period, when you lived and worked in the same place. Yeah. Um, you walked downstairs to go to work, um, your storefront, your Tavern, your, um, your business was right there and you were in it and it was your livelihood and anything that threatened it, um, was really dangerous. Yeah. And many secrets were kept, I think, to preserve that. Yeah. And so that's much of what, um, that Milu is much of what Amelia has grown up around. And of course, Sonya is, wants to be a scientist. Yeah. She wants to be a botanist. Her family doesn't understand this, they aren't scientists. And so she's a bit of a freak. Um, not only in her family for being interested in science, but for wanting to do more with her life than she sees the women around her doing. Um, she's she doesn't really have a model. Yeah. Um, on which to base her own life.
Speaker 4 00:39:28 Yeah. Yeah. Passage you read, uh, introduces the idea of science and her relationship to science. Uh, there's a nice quote early on. I can't remember who says it, your science only confirms what we old wives already know. And for me, when I'm reading that, um, old English major, that I am, um, sets up attention, a theme, uh, how do we know what we know? Um, do we get everything we know from science? Where else can we get knowledge? And what's true. Um, universal topic, but, uh, comes through a really strong, uh, early in your book, which I love, uh, speaking of Amelia and secrets, uh, she's raised by her aunts, which is suggestive of one of the secrets. How much do you want to reveal about her and the secret that, uh, she comes to learn? Or maybe nothing?
Speaker 5 00:40:17 Well, I'd like to keep, I'd like to let the readers, uh, come to that. Yeah. Um, but she, she is given a secret, uh, on her 15th birthday by her aunts. Yes. Um, and then told she has to keep it for the family. Um, and so at that point, she has to make a choice between who is more important. Um, and it's just at this time in your life, I think when your friends are your family, right. Um, especially for, in 1966 in this area, um, very much where I grew up, I have five brothers and sisters, most, everyone I went to school with had multiple, you know, ours was the big family, but it wasn't the biggest by any means. Right. But none of, none of these four friends have siblings, so they are each other's siblings. They are each other's families and her aunts make her UN ask that question of who's my family. Mm-hmm, <affirmative>, you know, who's my real family. Yeah. And what are my loyalties to whom? Yeah. So suddenly she's given a secret, she's got to keep it from her friends. Um, and that creates a different dynamic yeah. At that point.
Speaker 4 00:41:29 Yeah. Yeah. Uh, remind our listeners that we are speaking with, with Karen Lee Boen about her new novel secret waltz out from flexible press a press here in Minneapolis. And if we could Karen step back for just a moment from the, the novel in itself and, uh, talk about flexible press a little bit. If you don't mind, we'd like to feature our Minnesota publishers on right on radio. Absolutely. Yeah. And, um, and we've dedicated an hour to two books from flexible press and both wonderful books, novels. Um, how did you come to flexible press and, uh, tell us, um, a little bit about them, your experience with them, if you don't mind,
Speaker 5 00:42:05 Uh, it's been a terrific experience with flexible press, um, to give those out there who are writing, trying to submit a novel. Um, I just submitted, there was an open call and I submitted my book, um, and, uh, and bill liked it and contacted me. So bill Burson is, um, the publisher at, uh, along with his board and, and the other folks at flexible press, what's unique about flexible press and why I love it is because it's a mission driven press, which means that every book is attached to a charity, a no, a nonprofit and every book that is, uh, that you buy, um, has 10% of the, um, sales go to that charity for my book. Uh, and every, every book has a different charity, um, ones that are, um, appropriate to that book. And so the charity that's attached to my book is planned parenthood. Yep.
Speaker 5 00:43:06 Um, and so it's also an author involved, uh, press. And this is my first time walk working with an author involved press where I'm being both given the opportunity and obligation, um, to have a significant say in my book, both its production, I was able to have input on the cover. Wow. The original covers, uh, that were focus, grouped were fine, but they, they weren't exactly what I thought would reflect the tone of the book. Huh. Um, and so bill went back and he had another, uh, round of covers made and he focus, grouped them again. And we came up with this one, which I think is just right for this book. Yeah. Um, the editing, the promotion of it, the, um, everything you have a, it's a participatory press. Yeah. Um, and, uh, you know, bill is just so energetic and so generous with his time and with his enthusiasm, it's been a fantastic opportunity to work with this press and Minnesota should be very proud of flexible press. It's a significant thing to be an independent publisher right now.
Speaker 4 00:44:20 Yeah. Yeah. Well, beautifully told, uh, and an author centered press or author involved press. I think it was
Speaker 5 00:44:27 Author involved for sure.
Speaker 4 00:44:28 I love that. I love that term. I hadn't heard it before authors don't usually describe their relationships with their publishing house like that. So that's really wonderful to hear. Thank you for doing that. Uh, sharing that with us. Um, absolutely. You mentioned planned parenthood. Um, you wrote a book, I don't know when you started it. It comes out right when we are all thinking and talking a lot about women's productive rights or let's call them women's body rights. Um, how do you want this novel to fit into this, uh, current and of course, everlasting debate about women's bodies?
Speaker 5 00:45:04 Um, well, I hope it's right at the center. Um, it's a, it's an important issue for me. I began writing this book well over seven years ago. Um, it's not a surprise to me where we are today, but, um, of course I could never have imagined that we would be at this moment at the moment that my book is coming out. So as I was delivering this book to my book launch, I heard on the radio, um, that the Roe V Wade decision had been overturned. Wow. Um, I just, um, I think if you read Sonya's story, mm-hmm, <affirmative>, um, you really get inside the complexities of this issue. So yeah. Um, I am happy that my book, if it can do anything to help the conversation move in a productive direction, I'm very happy about
Speaker 4 00:45:59 That. So you addressed my follow up question, which is what's the role of fiction in issues like this? Um, you're an academic as well as a writer and you teach mm-hmm <affirmative>. Uh, what do you tell students, uh, about this, the role of fiction broadly speaking, and again, you've, you've addressed this. Um, but I think it's important. Um, just for us to think about that.
Speaker 5 00:46:22 Well, I think stories matter, um, I think fiction is unique to all other mediums in that media, in that it can do something that they can't, which is that you can get closer to a character and fiction than you can to another human being in your actual life. So if you think about the person that you are closest to in the world, the person you love the best and know the best, you can still not fall inside their heads and be inside their bodies and feel what they're feeling and see what they're seeing and see it and articulate it in the language that they would use. Mm-hmm <affirmative> film. Can't do that. It's gotta come from the outside theater. Can't do that. It's gotta come from the outside. Yes. You can have voiceovers, but you can, you can't see it all through just one character's point of view. Yeah. And then move to another character. So I think the role of fiction for me is one of intimacy, um, of creating stories that, that dive deep into character. I'm a character driven writer. Um, I'm not ashamed of that. I love my characters.
Speaker 4 00:47:33 Yeah. You certainly do. You shouldn't be they're marvelous.
Speaker 5 00:47:37 Um, uh, oh, I'm glad you liked them. It's so nice. Yeah. I've been telling people that it's so nice that somebody else finally knows them. I feel like I've been, uh, hanging out with these characters for so long that I have nobody else in the world knows that, but finally, people starting to get to know
Speaker 4 00:47:54 Them. Well, they seem real.
Speaker 5 00:47:58 Um, they're real to me. So I hope that comes across on page. Absolutely.
Speaker 4 00:48:02 Yeah. And with a topic like reproductive rights, abortion, whatever the case might be and, and, and pick your social theme, they have to be a novel social themes. Have to be a novels, or they're just not real novels, I guess. Oh, well, they can be. But, um, to do this without being pedantic, to talk us through a complex issue like this and keep us R to the story and to, for readers to then learn something, learn something ultimately about themselves. Um, that's tricky. That's difficult to do. I would imagine for a writer, um, you don't wanna preach to us cuz we don't wanna be preached to. Right. Even if we agree with you, uh, how do you balance that?
Speaker 5 00:48:45 Well, it's not propaganda, you know? I mean, I really wanted to think about it in a complex way. Um, and to present characters who think about it in a complex way.
Speaker 4 00:48:55 Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 00:48:55 Um, who have go through, um, phases, they don't come in with their, uh, ideas fully formed anymore than we have ideas fully formed. Um, but it's also about storytelling. Yes. And giving them other things to, uh, create their realities as well. Yeah. Um, you know, there's a reason that Shakespeare has the grave diggers and they have bad puns and they lighten attention at various times. Yeah. Um, the, the, the story needs to have a, a flow and it needs to have moments of tension and release and tension and release. Yeah. And tension and release throughout the book, if it's going to play to the end.
Speaker 4 00:49:43 Yes.
Speaker 5 00:49:44 Um, all the way to the end.
Speaker 4 00:49:46 So do you wanna talk to us about the big tension, um, uh, the big thing that happens that sort of, uh, uh, spirals the narrative to the end? Or do we wanna keep that broadly secret also, I'm asking you to tell them,
Speaker 5 00:50:02 I know, I know. Well, one of the things about the book, um, is, uh, really, I, I really did want it to be about secrets as
Speaker 4 00:50:09 Well. Yeah.
Speaker 5 00:50:11 And what the effect of secrets is. So if there's a broad arc in the book,
Speaker 4 00:50:15 Okay.
Speaker 5 00:50:16 It is the arc of secrets. Right. And what the implication of keeping a secret is and what the, uh, ramifications of keeping secrets are. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. So by the end of the book, so as I said, each character has a secret that they have to keep mm-hmm <affirmative> and each character, uh, has a secret that they have to find out. And by the end of the book, the reader has a secret that they can't tell. Yeah. They can't tell the characters, um, and they know something that the characters don't know. And, um, so I really wanted that to be sort of the overriding arc of the book. Um, is this, this idea of secrets
Speaker 4 00:51:01 Be well said, well described, it's a beautiful structure. Um, uh, writers, listening. There are many of you, um, you should be envious of it. It's a great idea. Um, Karen, we are at the end of our time here, we've been speaking with Karen Lee Bo about her new novel secret waltz, just out, please look it up folks. And her last name is B O R E N. You have a wonderful website. That's not easy to do either. Uh, before we let you go, what's up next? You got something else in the works.
Speaker 5 00:51:28 Um, yes I do. I'm working on a collection of short fiction right now. Um, and, uh, uh, also, you know, I do know what happens to these characters later, so it's possible, ah, if people, uh, are interested enough, um, that I might write that up. Um, brilliant. But yeah, mostly I'm working on this collection short fiction and really having just a great time doing experimental things in a shorter form. I love the short fiction form. You can get your head all the way around it. Yep. Um, uh, which in a way that you can't with a novel. Sure. Um, and so you can play a little more and you can experiment, uh, I, I experiment more in short fiction, so I'm having evolved
Speaker 4 00:52:10 In that. Oh, that's awesome. We look forward to that. Don't don't forget about us when that comes out.
Speaker 5 00:52:14 Absolutely.
Speaker 4 00:52:15 We will. We have been speaking once again with Karen Lee Bo about her new novel secret waltz. Thank you much, Karen. This was a delight.
Speaker 5 00:52:22 Oh, it was such a pleasure. Thank you so much.
Speaker 4 00:52:25 Good luck on your tour.
Speaker 5 00:52:26 Thank you. Bye.
Speaker 4 00:52:27 Now. And now this.
