Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:03 You are listening to right on radio on KFA 90.3 FM and streaming live on the web at <inaudible> dot org. I'm Annie. Tonight on, right on radio David Fettig talks with Kim dour. She is the author of sunbathing on Tyrone powers grave. Her fourth collection of poetry. Her work has been published in numerous journals and featured on Garrison Keillor's writer's Almanac and Ted cruisers, American life and poetry. She also teaches poetry and was formerly city poet Laureate for west Hollywood, California,
Speaker 1 00:00:37 And I'm Josh Webber. And the last part of the hour, Liz old's talks with award winning author, Mary Dixie Carter about her novel. The photographer, her writing has appeared in time. The economist, the Chicago Tribune and more Mary Dixie has an honors degree in English literature from Harvard and holds an MFA in creative writing from the new school. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two young children all this more. So stay tuned to write on radio.
Speaker 3 00:01:13 Hello, everyone. And welcome back to write on radio on KFH AI and hello to Kim Dow or welcome Kim.
Speaker 4 00:01:20 Hey Dave, how are you are thrilled to have you we've
Speaker 3 00:01:25 Been chatting for awhile. And, um, now you're here and this is exciting. Say, before we get started with a poem, um, why don't you tell us, I always like to ask our pullets how they were introduced to poetry when and how it became a part of their lives. Maybe when you started writing or maybe it was a reading poetry that got you turned on to it.
Speaker 4 00:01:47 Well, you know, I read poetry when I was little, a little girl, like so many children read poems. I adored, um, Dr. Seuss. And I do think of that as poetry and a Melanie, I used to read, um, you know, they're changing guard and puking them, Buckingham palace. Christopher Robin went down with Alice and I, I memorized these little poems when I was like five and six. And I read them to all my dolls who have to listen, which is great thing about dolls. They'll do what you tell them to do. And, uh, you know, so it was always, I'd write a little notebooks, but when I got to Emerson college way back in the seventies, uh, I took a class called introduction to creative writing my first year with a great poet named Thomas Lux, who my book is dedicated to sunbathing entire powers grave.
Speaker 4 00:02:42 Cause he sadly passed away a couple of years ago and he was really young. We were all young and he said, I w I am giving you all, you're all poets. This is your job in life. And he made it real for me and was, it was an amazing year and amazing time. Uh, and I started to write very seriously and I was lucky enough to have the most incredible teachers, uh, just total luck and fluke, um, you know, bill Matthews, uh, bill, not Thomas Lux, Paul Hannigan, these amazing poets. Um, I wish I could have had some women, but back then, um, it was a different time, uh, interestingly, but anyway, um, so that was my introduction. And then it became a part of my life that never could leave.
Speaker 3 00:03:38 Yeah. So I would push you, ask you a little more about this. Um, I've taken writing courses and, uh, uh, fiction writing courses, et cetera. And people talk about whether you can actually teach how to write well, and they're talking about fiction. Uh, it seems to me that question is even, um, you know, a little more prominent, if you will, when it comes to poetry, how in the world can you teach poetry? So when you say you had great teachers, what does that mean for you?
Speaker 4 00:04:04 You know, that's a great, it's a great question. Uh, it's a true question. Because as a teacher now, myself doing workshops, I often wonder that you cannot teach. You can't teach a sense of humor. You can't teach a style, you can't teach a voice. Um, you can't teach someone to see the world a certain way, right? What you can teach is craft. You can teach why there are line breaks and how to make them. You can teach them all the lenses that poetry has that you need to look at. The sounds, the music, um, the cliches, the repetition, you can teach someone how to look at a poem through the lenses they need to look at. You can give someone a personality, but you can teach them how to behave when they go out to dinner. Nice,
Speaker 3 00:05:00 Nice description. Yeah, I can see you're a good teacher. Um, so let's, let's give our listeners a sense of what good poetry is. Kim. And how about a reading, um, to get things started here. Do you have a poem in mind?
Speaker 4 00:05:12 I, you know, I do. I, I, I know you talked about sunbathing. I, Tyrone power was grave. So I thought I would pick the poem if you've got it on page 12. Um, I wrote this poem for my father. It's called thirst, and I thought it would be appropriate, uh, to read a poem because father stays coming up. So this is a good father's day poem. Thirst. My father never saw my house though, without his modest savings, we never could have bought it. My father didn't know his grandson passed the age of 10, but today at 28, my boy has his and many of his talents. My father died thirsty. We couldn't fill his needs. No one could. He had a big personality. My mother would say sucked. The air out of a room, needed you to pay attention to his, every word, a wall of talk.
Speaker 4 00:06:20 We wanted to jump over. My father could tell a good joke. Do the accents had the timing? Why wasn't that appreciated? He could sell anything, untangle a knot out of the most delicate chain. His stuff looked nice. His paintings framed. He'd served pats of butter on a dish restaurant style. Our people leave us and we let them go. They fade into the tapestry of the dead and occasional memory, slapping us in the face, tapping us on the shoulder, kissing the breeze by our cheek. We wait for the wind to blow these reminders like it did for me today, just now in my garden that he never saw, but would have loved, even though my roses are struggling. They're white pedals dropping so thirsty. They are so ready for a drink.
Speaker 3 00:07:27 Thank you, Kim. That was Kim Dow. We're reading from sunbathing on Tyrone power, his grave, her latest collection of poetry. I'm glad you selected that poem, Kim. I marked that one up. Um, I liked that we end with the thirsty plants and the father who could never have his thirst, quenched. Um, it's beautiful poem. Um, and, and it, yeah, and it leads to, uh, uh, sort of a broad set of questions. I want to ask you about nostalgia or looking back in the past. There's a lot of looking back in these poems. Um, was that intentional in this particular collection or are you in a place in your life where that makes sense to you? Are you particularly nostalgic? Um, what inspired a lot of this work?
Speaker 4 00:08:10 You know, um, a lot of the poems in this book are about dying and getting older. Um, and a lot of my poetry is about the past. You know, these things come up, I teach a class, I just taught a workshop at Antioch, um, last Friday called poetry and memory. Um, because our memories are so rich and right. And I always tell students, you can never have writer's block if you have a memory because you just sit down and give yourself a prompt. I remember when, and you're often running. Um, but, uh, in this particular book, there, there were a lot of poems about thinking back now, poems specifically did come to me, come through me. There are poems without sounding too woo, but that hit me. And literally I can feel them coming through my body. And I was w I was trimming the, the roses and I could feel my father and he never got to see that. And we're having a drought here and it just all came together and I had to run upstairs and, and start writing it because it was right there on my shoulder. Wow.
Speaker 3 00:09:29 Yeah, I've heard it said that there are, there are poems or verses or stories waiting to be plucked from wherever they live, if you will. And it seems like that that's what happened to you. Uh,
Speaker 4 00:09:42 Yeah. And they do live. Yeah, they are there waiting,
Speaker 3 00:09:47 You know, what you do nicely Kim and talking about the past is we do all have stories, but you have a, a lovely way of making them present and challenging the present. Um, I, I, I, I don't know how else to describe that, but it's one thing to tell us. It's one thing to tell a story. It's, it's one thing to bring it alive today and, uh, uh, in ways that you know that your readers can feel the same thing. I don't think that's easy to do. Maybe it is, but, uh, it's nicely done here. Um, yeah. Um, New York shows up a lot in these poems too. I, I believe you grew up in New York from my reading of the poems, but I might be wrong. You certainly have spent a fair amount of time in New York, New York and LA, that whole binary thing is going on here. Um, how much does place shape your work?
Speaker 4 00:10:34 Um, can very much, I mean, I grew up, uh, I grew up in New York city, um, right in the, in the city and, but I left New York, uh, to go to college in Boston. And then I went directly to LA, you know, 35 years ago. And yet New York creeps back. New York is in New York and LA are very much in my work, but New York is, it's just there. And I, when I think of certain things, I just wrote a poem the other day about my grandmother taking me to the bakery and getting a cookie when I was little and what it smelled like at the bakery. Why did these things come up now? I don't know. Yeah. Um, but you're right. You know, the key, I want people to connect, you know, we don't write for ourselves. We write for other people. I mean, I want people to connect with the work and you hope that the memories and the, and the writing brings back memories for others as well. That's important.
Speaker 3 00:11:38 That raises a number of other questions for me. I'm going to start with, so when I read from your other two collections, um, slice of moon and last train of the missing planet, and it probably would have been the same thing if I were paying attention similarly, while reading sunbathing, but I, that, um, the quotidian for lack of a better term, and I have a list here of things that pop up in your poems, like, um, flip-flops that are just sitting around blue sheets, blues, some blue, a bare news story, blue sheets, yes. Photos hanging crooked on a wall. Um, and other things that I can't find on my notes right now, but these daily sorts of things that, um, you see, and they become a poem. And it got me thinking about how I believe this might be true, because I'm not one, but photographers see the world in a special way, like photographers do. And it occurred to me when reading your poems, that poets must see the world too, um, in ways that the rest of us don't because a discarded flip-flops wouldn't strike everyone as necessarily a takeoff point for a poem, but you do it all the time. It's really nice.
Speaker 4 00:12:43 Well, thank you. I, you know, it's like the old Jerry Seinfeld show and they said, you know, the shows are about nothing. Right. You know, how do you make a 30 minute show that nothing. Right. They're hilarious. And I think a lot of my poems are about nothing. Um, because a poem for me is about that one moment, one little moment that other people don't really see that I see. And, uh, you know, I have a poem, Ashley, I picked out that's about nothing. If you want me to read it, perfect timing. I was like, yeah, I had this because it's, uh, this is one of those poems that I'll tell you. I wrote it. And I re I wrote it, you know, obviously work on these things, but I thought, is this, should I throw this in the garbage? Or is this like pretty worthwhile?
Speaker 4 00:13:34 Cause it is literally about nothing, but it's called in the moment, which I think is about poetry. Poetry is in the moment. I just, I just parallel parked exactly right. For the first time ever, maybe because I wasn't imagining a tsunami killing the Sunday in Laguna or thinking about my mother alone at home, or when I dropped the puppy off the patio, she was fine. I never recovered. But today windows down, no radio, just sky steering wheel. And my hands were one and backing into the space, feeling my tires hug the curb was a clean slide into home. That rare fit of perfection was upon me. And let me say right now, I didn't waste it.
Speaker 3 00:14:31 That's nice. That's Kindle reading in the moment and remind me, Kim, which volume is that from?
Speaker 4 00:14:36 That's sunbathing Sunday, the entire power spray.
Speaker 3 00:14:38 Thank you. I remember reading that, but see what you do in these poems though, is, and maybe there's, this is a technique, or maybe there's a term that applies here as a teacher. You can, you can tell us this, but uh, you bring us to a closure. Um, and I'll say this because it's the first thing that popped into mind. For example, Shakespeare's sonnets, lovely lines about whatever it might be. And then we wrap up with this couplet, which suggests to us some, you know, main theme or points that he wants to make. You do this in your poems too. And you did it in this last one. You may start out with quote, unquote, nothing, but then you bring us to a point where you want us to, you want this to mean something for us, or at least you hint at it. You don't hit us over the head with it because we wouldn't like that very much. And that wouldn't be very good port,
Speaker 4 00:15:20 But, but, but well, it is a pawn, you know, a poem. Should you want it to, if it's a narrative which tells a story, you want it to turn when the poem has a turn, is when it gets interesting. What does that turn? It suddenly shifts. It goes from funny to not funny or the heart of that. The hardest thing about writing a poem is getting out of a poem. Yeah. Easier to start upon, enter a poem. But getting out of that poem with a real emphasis is the hardest thing about writing. Is that ending getting out of a poem, you're getting out of the poem. We write the poem to get out of the poem.
Speaker 3 00:16:01 I like that. Write that down kids. That's a good, yeah. Um, I wonder if you could tell us a little, a break from talking about poetry as such, but, uh, you were a poet Laureate for the city of west Hollywood. What did that mean? And congratulations on that. Um, what does that mean for you
Speaker 4 00:16:22 As a polar yet? So much fun? It was a true honor, actually. It really was a, I didn't know what it was going to mean. I was just the second one, the person before me, Stephen rains, he said, you've got to apply for this. And I said, I don't have any time to do this. And I don't, you know, and he goes, oh, nonsense, just do it. And it honestly shifted me from more of an introverted poet. Um, I did teach some classes, but it opened me up because my responsibility was bringing poetry to the community. Um, west Hollywood is its own city here. You know, there's ho you know, Hollywood and west Hollywood is west of Hollywood, but it's, it's got its own city council, its own mayor. And, um, uh, it's um, very diverse community. And my job was to get poetry out there. So I went into schools, I taught at least sixth graders. Amazing. Um, we did a collaborative poem where I would go into bookstores and yogurt places and bars and all kinds of places and get people to, uh, answer prompts. And then I would take all the prompts and put together to make a collaborative poem that we made posters up. And, um, I, I curated several readings with different people in the community that we, it was just a very exciting, fun opportunity for me to talk about poetry with people. Yeah,
Speaker 3 00:17:58 Yeah, yeah. Oh, good. That what a wonderful experience and this, this connects to what I want to ask you next. So coincidentally, uh, my latest, uh, edition volume of poetry magazine from the poetry foundation there, it is just arrived today. And the editor writes in the first sentence in quotes, what can a poem do? And she goes, underwrite inevitably like many artists. I fall into that cycle of self doubt questioning. If my art is really enough in the world, are we helping people by tit taking two verse? Are we helping people by taking diverse? So I'm gonna re ask that question of you a poet, a very successful poet. Um, uh, what does poetry bring us?
Speaker 4 00:18:41 Well, Ws, Mervyn, aye. This is his quote and his line, but poetry is a way of looking at the world for the first time. Oh, that's good. And you know, I, what does it bring us? You know, um, it brings us away of seeing things that we see every day, like, as you mentioned, flip-flops or the roses in the garden, or any number of millions of things and seeing them in a way we've never seen them before and connecting emotionally with something, you know, people turn to poetry when they're, when they need it. You know, someone is getting married, someone they love died, they fell in love, you know, these monumentally, emotional, incredible moments in our lives. This is when people will want a poem. Um, the great thing about poetry is that you just read a poem a day, it nourishes you like, you know, some kind of fabulous little concoction cereal, or, you know, it really nourishes you. And, um, so what do we need it for? You know, what do we need grapes for? Or dandelions or lizards or yeah, puppies.
Speaker 3 00:20:07 I think Robert Bly said something on this question of why do we dance? Why don't we just keep walking? That's why you need poetry. Right.
Speaker 4 00:20:15 Well, you know, Erica, John says writing prose is, is walking and poetry is dancing.
Speaker 3 00:20:25 Yeah. Uh, so Kim, thank you. How, how do you work? Uh, so we're talking about poetry and these ideas that hit us. And, uh, I think for a lot of people, uh, writing poetry is this sort of mysterious, magical thing, uh, maybe difficult, but how do you work? Do you, are you one of those writers who sits down at a certain time and every day and, uh, no,
Speaker 4 00:20:49 You know, I have a day job. I actually, I have a whole other, I do. I actually do publicity for, for authors and a crazy coincidence. But when you spoke about a photographer, but the next person on the show talking to Liz, um, is married Dixie Carter. And she wrote this book called photographer, right. And it's about an obsessive photographer. And the comparison you made between, um, photography and poach B is, is a good one because you can become very obsessive with the way you see something. And it becomes a part of you and you'll hear what she has to say, but, um, I spend my hours of my day, uh, helping other writers get out there and get the word out. So I can't set a time during the day to write, but I write every day and I get up at five 30 or six and either I go right through a poem, or if a poem hits me in the middle of the day, that comes to me, um, as the will do, I will devote my time to it, no matter what I will, I, I can be focused that way, but I write at night I write on the weekends and I've never been able to choose the set time, but somehow there's always time.
Speaker 4 00:22:06 There's always time to write.
Speaker 3 00:22:08 Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Uh, are many listeners of this show will know that I, a form is a big deal for me with poems. And, uh, when I opened the book or look at a poem on a page, the shape of the words, they instantly say something to me. Uh, so when, when you, uh, think of a poem or a poem hits you, do you see the shape of it right away? Do you see the form?
Speaker 4 00:22:32 You know, I love that question. Um, I do. I do. I, uh, and, and, and sometimes the poem will tell you what shape it wants to be. You know, I will write, uh, sometimes I start in with cassettes, like thirst, there's three, uh, three lines to a stanza. And you know, that is when it, it needs more opening. It needs more breathing space. It needs thinking as opposed to just one straight, uh, no stanza breaks, which is more like a rant or something speedier, it comes out. Speedier wants to be quicker. Sometimes they're skinny lines. Sometimes they're longer lines, but it, it, it can, um, as soon as they computer, they used to play the piano. And it's almost like playing the piano where I'll close my eyes and, uh, do the return. Like I can feel it wants to return, or it wants to have two extra lines. Yeah. It's a beautiful thing. It's a, it's like a meditation writing, writing a poem for me, the first draft, it's just hard work, figuring out what to do with it. Many
Speaker 3 00:23:46 Drafts on most of your poems
Speaker 4 00:23:50 Will see my poems, but the one spit, a lot of them cut up clean. It's just, it's a great thing. But I love the question about shape because you see people don't understand that poems do have shape and it did the way they look on the page is also part of it. So you're so right about that.
Speaker 3 00:24:11 And I'm also so right about the fact that I'm getting the cutoff sign from our producer here. I can't believe it. Kim, can you believe this? Um, so the good news is, is you're still writing and you're going to have another volume someday. And you're going to come back on our show on my right.
Speaker 4 00:24:26 I hope I would love to. I have a good command in April. You do
Speaker 3 00:24:30 Well. Please think of us. Think of me and we're getting them get going to get you back on. We are speaking with Kim dour, D O w E R. Look her up. You when you Google her name, the first thing that will come up is the national poetry foundation. And that's pretty cool, Kim. That's pretty cool. Oh, wow. I didn't even know that. That's right. So, Kim, thank you very much. Wish you all the best.
Speaker 4 00:24:50 Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me at YouTube and now this by, by
Speaker 0 00:25:38 Hi, Mary Dixie. Are you there?
Speaker 5 00:25:41 Yes. Hi, Liz. How are you doing great. How are you? Good. Thank you. Why
Speaker 0 00:25:47 Don't we with the short synopsis of the book, whatever you want to tell us about it. And then a reading, a couple of minutes of reading.
Speaker 5 00:25:56 Okay. Terrific. Um, well first I just want to say how pleased I am to be here. Um, my novel is the photographer and Delta Dawn is the photographer and she takes pictures of wealthy, new Yorkers and their children and the opening of the book. She goes to the home of Amelia and Fritz Straus to photograph, uh, their daughter's birthday party. And she falls in love with this family, and she becomes obsessed with this family. And the book tells the story of her trying to insinuate herself into the family. So the scene that I'm going to read Delta is babysitting for 11 year old, Natalie and Amelia and Fritz are out. And Natalie is asleep and Delta takes this opportunity to look around the house. Um, and at this particular moment, she's in the master bathroom, finished at the mirror. I turned to take in the magnificence of the bathtub.
Speaker 5 00:27:12 I'd never baked in such a tub. I considered how much time I had. It was 10:00 PM. The Straub's definitely wouldn't return home before 11 and Amelia had indicated it would be later. If I were to take a bath, I'd have at least an hour before, I'd have to worry about their arrival. I pulled my shirt over my head, removed my bra and examined my torso in the full length mirror. I still had a flat stomach and a slender waist. I thought about conceding and bearing a child, child birth can alter a woman's body. Sometimes permanently. I sat down on an Indonesian stool and pulled off my socks, my jeans and my underwear then stood naked in the lavish bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror, savoring a sense of connection and intimacy with a Strauss and also the power associated with claiming what I needed.
Speaker 5 00:28:13 I considered the logistics of my fast. I ought not to use a towel for my bath because I might not have time to wash and dry. It, it would likely notice a damp towel or a damp tub. Maybe I needed to wait for my next visit and bring my own towel. The thought of postponing, the bath brought my spirits down. I spied a damp towel draped over the towel bar and contemplated using that one. I leaned over to smell it and detected Amelia musky scent, still undecided. I returned to the bedroom to study the Stroud's bed. A dozen pillows of various sizes and fabrics and various shades of blue covered the upholstered headboard. I wanted to lie naked under their organic cotton sheets, salts, Amelia, and Fritz. Having sex entered into my mind. Maybe they'd stopped after all the miscarriages. Maybe it was too traumatic for them.
Speaker 5 00:29:08 Now Natalie's face appeared in the doorway, her body lurched back at the sight of me. Hi, Natalie. I spoke in a calm tone. The little wave of panic ran through me. I spotted a throat draped over a nearby chair. The craziest thing I wrapped the blanket tightly around my body. Just a few minutes ago, it sucked, bothered it. I was downstairs and lifting him off the porch. I'll hold for him. Really. I avoided her eye contact. So all my clothes I had to clean everything. It was quite a mess. And I'm, I'm gonna wash my clothes in the machine. I'll just, I'll just find a towel until they're dry. Pour it sock Natalie across towards me in the direction of the bathroom. I feared she was going to examine my clothing to see if I was telling the truth about the vomit, but she stopped in front of one of her parents' nightstands to check the time she turned around and walked back towards the bedroom door.
Speaker 5 00:30:08 Fortunately, Natalie went back to bed rather quickly. After a glass of milk, I was mildly concerned about how she would relate what she saw. She appeared to believe me when I explained about Itzhak, but I couldn't be certain still wrapped in the blanket. I returned to the master bathroom where I'd left my clothes and sent Amelia text. Can I use the laundry machine to wash my clothes? Unfortunately, it's Aspen ill. No. Did he ruin your clothes? I'm fine. Please use my bathroom to rinse off the response, allayed all my fears and filled me with the same sense of euphoria that I'd had earlier. I placed my clean clothes in the laundry machine with detergent. Then when I entered the master bathroom, again, it was not as a trespasser, but as an invited guest,
Speaker 0 00:31:08 That was a scene from the photographer by Mary Dixie Carter. Um, I'm interested. Okay. This character, I don't know if it exactly call her a soccer, but she starts out a very sympathetic and as the book goes along, she gets kind of creepier and creepier. And I'm wondering, yeah, she gets pretty creepy. I have to say. Um, and I'm wondering, you know, how you got the idea. The most interesting thing to me is it's from her point of view. So you get to see the point of view from someone who's, uh, kind of creepy and, and, uh, but she's synthetic too. I mean, I, I couldn't decide what I liked or didn't like her. And I'm wondering, uh, where did you get the idea to do this and to do it this way? From the point of view of the person who's doing the invasive stuff?
Speaker 5 00:32:03 Um, well, I hired a photographer to take pictures of my two children. Um, my children are 10 and eight now, but this was a few years back and the pictures came back and they were beautiful. Um, they, they were really lovely photos, but the children's eyes were who bought blue. And I said to the photographer and my children's eyes in real life are, are not cobalt blue. And I said to the photographer, I would like for my children's eyes to be their real color. And she said, there is no real color. And I was so interested in that. It's stuck with me. Like, I couldn't forget. I couldn't forget that. And also the psychology behind it, I found so interesting and the, the idea that there's no real color and then there's no real anything and you can just alter it and make it what you want it to be.
Speaker 5 00:33:12 And then the reference point for what was there in the first place is kind of irrelevant and gone. And, um, and I was interested in this woman's point of view. I'm not talking about that. The photographer I hired anymore, because it, she just gave me like the jumping off point. So I was interested in this woman's point of view of like how, and, and I just wanted to go with her as far as she would go and stay in her head. And so that was how I decided to do the, the first person point of view was that was really what interested me all along was her psychology and who she is and why she is the way that she is. And, you know, just thinking about like her lack of boundaries, she doesn't have, um, she doesn't have boundaries in terms of like, what's her imagination and what's real.
Speaker 5 00:34:17 She also doesn't have boundaries in terms of like where she belongs, if she belongs or where she belongs in relation to the Strauss family. She's, um, very, she's completely boundary less, and she's also feels herself to be an outsider. And that was another thing that I was really interested in is the outsider point of view. And, and I feel like everyone feels like an outsider from time to time or at some point in your life. I think everyone feels like an outsider, whether the circumstances really dictate it or not. And, um, and in Delta's case, she feels like an outsider. And in some ways it's self fulfilling that she feels like an outsider. And then she is an outsider because she has, you know, she has a lot of wonderful, um, she's very talented and, you know, smart, and, and it's not like she D she doesn't need the Strauss family.
Speaker 5 00:35:23 There's nothing about them that she actually needs. It's her feeling of like, lack of self-worth lack of self esteem and that empty feeling that she has, that, um, no matter she were to accomplish, I have bet doing that, that emptiness would not go away. And, um, and I know people who have, um, that, you know, from objective standpoint, they have like a very nice life. You would look at them and say they have a very nice light, but, um, if someone has really low self esteem and if nothing can really, um, fill that void, you know what I mean? So that was, those are the, some of the things I was exploring.
Speaker 0 00:36:19 Well, now I'm curious, um, so many questions, I'm trying to get them in a certain order, but, but one of the things I'm curious about is the Strauss family and how quickly they've trusted Delta. And I wondering, would you say as the author that they bear some, even if it's a small amount, they bear some responsibility for the events that happened?
Speaker 5 00:36:45 Oh, yes. I, I think they bear a lot of responsibility. I mean, I don't see, I don't see Delta as the bad guy. I mean, I, I think that the Straus are equally, as long as they have the just different flaws than the ones Delta has and the Straub's bring a lot of stuff on themselves. Like totally bring a lot of stuff on themselves. Amelia is not there for her daughter and not really paying attention to her daughter. And that's one reason why Delta has this opportunity to kind of insert yourself in there, um, is because Amelia is out to lunch in a way. And, and then, and, and Amelia, you know, also as you point out the fact that they want to go on this dinner and they don't have a babysitter and, you know, Delta seems perfectly nice. And so they, they're not they're their top priority, um, is not really their daughter and a lot of moments throughout the book.
Speaker 5 00:38:01 So I definitely, I didn't, I was hoping that people would like Delta and would, I mean, not like her that's the wrong word, but that they would understand her or feel for her empathize with her. And in a way, the Straub's, there's something worse about them because they're so like, you know, well, Emilia has, I'm not going to do any spoilers, but Amelia has things she's upset about, but they're entitled and kind arrogant. And self-important, and, and Delta is, is not, I mean, at least Delta is not those things. Don't have a lot of laws, but she's not, you know, arrogant and self-important exactly.
Speaker 0 00:38:55 Well, she has a good relationship with Natalie and I'm wondering Natalie's the, the child. Um, and they have some similarities in terms of it's interesting because, uh, Delta comes from, uh, uh, pretty lower class background. And Natalie comes from this very entitled background, and yet they managed to, uh, uh, bond very nicely. And I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about how they bothered considering the differences in their backgrounds?
Speaker 5 00:39:26 Um, well, I think Delta is Delta talks early on in the book about how she made, um, a concerted effort to learn this lifestyle. She had a boyfriend in high school, um, for several years and sort of the reason she continued to date him, she mentioned this briefly is because is because I'm dating him. She was around his parents and Tim, and she could kind of study everyone and pick up on all the details of what they, you know, how they spoke or how they behaved, or, you know, little mannerisms and try to emulate that and try to become it. And so by the time she meets Natalie she's, she has a lot of Polish. She, um, and she's, self-educated, I mean, she's like, uh, I think she's definitely, um, teaching herself all the time. She's that kind of person she's trying to improve herself constantly.
Speaker 5 00:40:38 So she didn't have a great formal education, but she's working on it all the time because she wants to be, uh, some she wants to belong to that world and is very, very eager and willing to do anything really belong to that world. So anyway, but all by way of saying, um, by the time Natalie meets Delta, she, um, she has, she, she has enough, um, polished that, that, that she can connect and talk to Natalie. And I think Delta has sort of become good at that because she's been taking photos of, uh, children and, you know, around New York and Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Brooklyn, she's been taking photos and she was, she's become quite adept at bonding with and connecting with children because it's, you know, it's her profession and she kind of has to, and then the other thing is, I think she sees him Natalie, an artist, and she sees someone who is, um, has an artistic sensibility. And, um, and they share some of that too.
Speaker 0 00:41:58 You know, I was thinking after I read the whole book and I was, you know, contemplating on it that, um, it was very important that Delta was a woman. I think I would have felt entirely differently if I had been reading about a man who was doing the same kinds of things. And did you think about that when you were writing it or did it just come from you whole cloth?
Speaker 5 00:42:23 Um, well, I'm curious, how would you, how differently would you have felt about it if it was a man? I, I, I, um, I agree with you, but I'm just curious, how would it have felt more dangerous or something yes,
Speaker 0 00:42:37 Dangerous and also more, more creepy. I mean, Delta's a little crazy, but I have a lot of, of, um, emotions, positive emotions towards her too. Uh, man doing this, I wouldn't have any positive emotions at all. I would just be bummed out and mad.
Speaker 5 00:42:57 Well, so it never really occurred to me that Delta could be a Nan. Um, it like it wasn't. And I think it's because I'm going to just lean towards writing a woman in the, you know, the main roles in anything that I write, I'm going to gravitate towards writing women, um, just comes easier to me. So it didn't really occur to me that that was even an option, but also her whole personality. And, um, you know, one thing that's sort of tied in with her lack of self-esteem is like her, her and her lack of self-worth, um, being kind of being an object and, um, viewing herself that way. Uh, and, and, and yeah, so I, a lot of things wouldn't work very well if, if Delta were a man, but you're right. It was, it would be much more creepy if it was pick up that word and
Speaker 0 00:44:09 Say down another line, we have, we have a few minutes left here down another line. I was wondering about also about if this book could even have been written in the pre-digital era, um, would it, if it had been written 40 years ago, you think it would have been considered science fiction almost?
Speaker 5 00:44:31 Oh, you know, you're right. Because, because it would like some, now we know that you can do practically everything where anything with Photoshop or with photo editing and, and also we're in a world where people do it. And, and so the people are constantly changing their photos on Instagram and presenting themselves a certain way. And you can't really trust as a photo to be what it appears to be. So in a way, if it was 40 years ago, I think it might, well, it would be different because it wouldn't be talking about something that does exist, you know, in the world it'd be sort of a hypothetical. Um, and I don't know, maybe hard to even ponder or imagine hard to even ponder 40 years ago that we would have Instagram or that we would have any of these things. Um, so yeah, I guess it would be science fiction if it had been written then.
Speaker 5 00:45:40 Um, but, but that was another thing that I was exploring, uh, also was what is kind of disturbing is Instagram and, and social media and, um, the way everyone's preoccupied with presenting themselves, even to their friends and I'm including myself in this too. Um, but everyone's, everyone's presenting themselves instead of actually just being who they are. And that may have been true 40 years ago, but it's just so pervasive now it's everywhere and it's sort of happening all day long, you know, even for people who aren't like, uh, celebrities or anything, just everyone is doing the same thing. It's so easy. Yeah. It's so easy. And it's, there's something that we, we are losing. I think there's some break things about social media, but there are definitely something that we're losing when, um, because of that, it seems to me like a more genuine, uh, way of connecting with people and often replaced by something that is not quite as genuine
Speaker 0 00:46:57 Well and privacy too. I mean, Delta, without any spoilers does, uh, invade the privacy of the startup family in many ways. And, um, I wonder if you feel like that's something that has become more, uh, possible in this age of itself, uh, social media.
Speaker 5 00:47:19 Oh, definitely. Yes. So I mean very much so like all, well, everyone has access so much of, of information. Like people put their whole life up on social media and there's ways to even if it has some private setting, um, there's definitely ways to get around that. Um, so yes, the, the privacy issue is Delta forges ahead and, and breaks, you know, without any constraints and without any sort of sense of what's appropriate. And, um, nothing's really holding her back when, when she's interacting with other people, she kind of knows how to behave and what is appropriate, but when no one else is in the room, there's nothing holding her back from just, just going full speed ahead and, um, and you know, breaking through all of these boundaries of privacy and everything else.
Speaker 0 00:48:33 Yeah. She kind of breaks all the rules there. Um, yeah. You know, we are actually running out of time here, so just kind of briefly what's next in the, in the Mary Dixie, uh, Carter,
Speaker 5 00:48:50 I am working on a second novel. I it's too early for me to tell you too much about the second novel. Um, it's, uh, the outsider theme will, um, very likely be there in the second novel too. And I can also tell you something that I can't give you all the information, but, um, the photographer is, uh, being developed for a TV series at a patient, uh, as we speak, but it hasn't been announced. So I, I can't give any details, but that's exciting too.
Speaker 0 00:49:31 That's very exciting. Well, I'm afraid we've run out of time, which I am sad about, but this has been a wonderful chat. And the book is the photographer by Mary Dixie Carter. Uh, definitely check it out and, uh, oh, today is the day is coming out. All right. All right.
Speaker 5 00:49:53 And it got a great review in the New York times, too. Right.
Speaker 0 00:49:56 That's great. Oh, that's wonderful. Congratulations. Okay. Well, thank you so much for sharing some time on, right on radio. And I really appreciate it.
Speaker 5 00:50:08 I'm so happy. I'm thrilled. Thank you for having me. You bet. You bet. Thank you so much. Bye-bye bye-bye,
