Speaker 0 00:00:01 You are listening to right on radio on cafe in 90.3 FM and streaming live on the
[email protected]. I'm Josh Webber tonight on right on radio. We'll be featuring one of our legacy episodes. It's a blast from the past. As we revisit conversations from authors we've had on previous episodes
Speaker 1 00:00:19 And I'm Annie Harvey in the last part of the hour, Liz talks with Kristin Hannah author of the four winds. She is the number one New York times bestselling author of a claim novels, the Nightingale, the great alone and winter garden. Her novel, the Nightingale has been published in 43 languages and is currently in movie production at Tristar pictures, which has also optioned her novel. The great alone her book Firefly lane was recently adapted into a television series and is now streaming on Netflix, all this and more. So stay tuned to write on radio.
Speaker 0 00:00:52 <inaudible>
Speaker 1 00:01:09 Welcome to right on radio, Dr. Stanley,
Speaker 2 00:01:12 Thank you so much for having me Liz.
Speaker 1 00:01:14 We're excited to, uh, I really enjoyed the book. So, uh, give us a quick overview of what
Speaker 2 00:01:23 Well, um, my book is about stress and trauma and resilience, um, and it starts with stories, um, my own experiences with stress and trauma and many people that I have trained, um, and uses the stories to help, uh, Luminate how and why our minds and bodies do what they do and what we can do differently. Help ourselves find choice in the middle of stress and trauma.
Speaker 1 00:01:56 The title is what is the window? I mean, what is the window?
Speaker 2 00:02:02 No, the window is a metaphor for the window of tolerance to stress arousal, which each of us have. And we start wiring our window while we're still in the womb. And while we're still not yet born and we wire it throughout our lives, when we're inside our window, we can keep our deliberate decision-making and, um, on online so that we can access choice. And that lets us make choices that match our values and goals. And when we're inside our window, we can also recover after we experienced stressful or challenging experiences. Um, everybody's window can be narrowed through their life, um, during childhood stress and trauma during shock trauma events, like a terrorist attack or combat or rape, but it also can be narrowed just with everyday things like not getting sleep or, um, having to cope with a tension in close relationships where even traffic, if we're not turning stress off, our window gets narrow. So the first part of the book kind of lays out the science stick, explain why this is, and it uses people's stories. Um, and then the second part of the book explains and explores lots of different ways that we can help our minds and bodies to recover so that our window can get wider.
Speaker 3 00:03:30 Uh, tell us about M fit that, uh, is, uh, um, well, what is it and a little bit about how it works?
Speaker 2 00:03:41 Yes. So, um, in my own journey through stress and trauma, uh, I come from a long military family and then served in the military myself and I had a near death experience while I was deployed in Bosnia. So by the time I got to graduate school, I was suffering from PTSD and chronic, um, physical illnesses and insomnia. And eventually I lost my eyesight and that whole process made me look for something to help make it better. And through that process, I did a lot of different things, tried a lot of different techniques and I pulled them together in a resilience training program called mindfulness based mindfulness training. Um, the acronym is M fit, which is what you said. And we spent a decade testing it in high stress situations, um, offering it to men and women before they were deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan. I worked with neuroscientists and stress researchers, um, to look at its effect and the basic idea that basic principle that MC is built on is that when we can access choice stressful and challenging experiences are much less likely to be traumatic for our minds and bodies.
Speaker 2 00:04:58 So we're much less likely to have negative effects over the long-term in terms of our physical health or mental health. Um, and we've published the research from the studies, um, in top science journals. But the core idea is that where we are directing our attention has profound ripple effects through our minds and bodies. And most of us are directing our attention unconsciously. Um, and that's often what leads us to turn stress on and not turn it off in <inaudible>. Um, people learn how to direct their attention deliberately and direct it in ways that help their minds and bodies recover from stress and trauma so that they can widen the window.
Speaker 3 00:05:44 Talk about the thinking brain and the survival brain.
Speaker 2 00:05:50 So we, um, in the book, I talk about the two parts of our brain, um, and it kind of builds on the idea that was popularized by, um, Daniel Conaman in his bestselling book, thinking fast and thinking slow. So the thinking brain is the neocortex, the part of our brain that's involved for deliberate decision making and planning and remembering consciously. And it's the thinking flow part. It's very conscious and it's effortful. And we know that our thinking brain is active whenever we hear that inner commentary of ourselves thinking and narrating and judging and comparing that all thinking raving, um, the survival brain is the evolutionarily older parts of our brain and it is responsible for, uh, keeping us safe. So we know the survival brain, the survival brain is very fast applied, you know, kind of fast it's happening automatically and effortlessly as unconscious. And its whole focus is to help the face.
Speaker 2 00:06:59 So it's constantly scanning the environment, you know, to see if things are going to be safe or dangerous. And if it's fine to things it's stressful or challenging, it turns stress on. Um, and importantly that the survival brain is also responsible for recovery. So, um, when the survival brain is active and doesn't feel safe, we're not going to be able to turn stress off. So a big part of emphasis is training us to be aware of the spinal range because it doesn't have that, um, narrative in arguments and then how to tour with it. So for example, you're sitting in traffic, you're late for work meeting and, um, you can feel yourself starting to get either anxious. We're going to be late for the meeting, or you're annoyed, stuck in traffic. And someone cuts you off. All of that is challenging and the survival main is going to get, um, find that challenging.
Speaker 2 00:07:56 And that's why we produces the anxiety or the irritation. If we spend that time directing our attention to worry about the fact that we're or comparing ourselves or getting angry at the person, I think it's off and thinking about that, it's only going to turn more stress on that. If we were to direct our attention to, um, noticing the blue sky or noticing, um, pleasant music and really listening to pleasant music, or even directing our attention, female lock, hands, touching the steering wheel, all of those things would be attention cues that would help the survival brain to feel stable and grounded. And so it wouldn't add any more stress on it might not fully turn it off yet, but it wouldn't be making it worse. So I know this sounds super simple, but, um, there is scientific evidence that shows that when we can direct our attention to these cues, that help the survival brain feels safe and grounded. This is what helps us build our region.
Speaker 3 00:09:00 It sounds like, you know, I was thinking as I read the book and you talk about mindfulness and meditation and even the warrior idea, um, that, um, it's kind of Buddhist and yet it's also very scientific. And I'm wondering if you had studied a little Buddhism or if this all came from the scientific, uh, studies or how that worked for you.
Speaker 2 00:09:26 I initially found mindfulness meditation through, um, what his practices, um, personally, um, but I, and I spent some time in Burma actually, um, doing some intensive practice there. Um, but the thing is being able to notice what's happening while it's happening is not, um, particular to any religious tradition. Uh, if there are religious practices in all of the different major world traditions to help cultivate this quality, but this is the quality, the skin, the human mind, uh, it's just a natural way that our attention can be directed if we learn to do it. Um, it's actually more of a remembering of it because we naturally innate habit. We just, most of us have wired patterns that are different from that. Um, but the emphasis is not what it's, because it also blends in, um, techniques from body-based trauma therapies that help the survival brain and the nervous system to get grounded. And reregulated after chronic stress or trauma. So it's kind of a blend of lots of different things from my past experiences and from my clinical training. Um, and as I said, this is something that innately our bodies already know how to do. It's just for most of us, we have conditioned ourselves to patterns that block that in the process. And so part of it is helping us to become aware of the ways that we're ton of getting in our own way and then helping our system to do what it's naturally able to do.
Speaker 3 00:11:09 I'm thinking in particular of the URC is Dodson curve that you have in chapter five. Uh, is it accurate to say that some stress is good?
Speaker 2 00:11:21 It absolutely is accurate to say that Liz yes. Thank you for pointing that out. So the Yerkes Dodson curve looks at the relationship because your readers are probably not looking at the chart right now. It looks at the relationship between, um, stress arousal, our procedure arousal, and our performance. Um, and it's a U shaped curve. So the bottom of the curve, there's no stress arousal, but there's also no performance. And we all know that like, this is one of the reasons why caffeine can help us get focused. It produces a certain amount of stress arousal, but why deadlines can help us get focused? So we need kind of a moderate amount of stress to get off the couch from our procrastination and get things done. And the optimal place in that curve, the high point is at a moderate stress arousal. The problem is when we have stress arousal beyond that moderate level direct high levels or prolonged high levels, we move over onto the other side of the curve and that's when it start cutting distress. Um, so being able to know where our bodies and minds are to find where our own optimal performance zone is, what our own moderate stress level is. That's a big piece of working with our systems, um, effectively. And that's what we teach in empathy. And that's what I live in.
Speaker 3 00:12:48 You can sort of, uh, overlay the fight flight or freeze, uh, thing with the, the bell curve of the Yerkes Dodson curve. Wouldn't you say
Speaker 2 00:13:04 You absolutely can live that's right. Um, when we are at moderate stress arousal, we still have our thinking brain functions online. Um, so we have, we have turned on fight or flight, but it's not extreme yet. Um, but when we go over to the distress side of the curve, the fight or flight, uh, the stress around the levels get so high that our thinking brain functions start to get degraded. And the further up down that curve, you go to the place where, you know, the curve then touches back to the X axis again. Um, performance is down to nothing you're very, very higher up than a little that's where freezing that's exactly right. The Franz response is when our survival brain has perceived neither fight or flight as possible. And so if it falls into this very helpless and powerless place, and that's where often we might clutch up and not be able to do anything, um,
Speaker 3 00:14:06 Let's talk about sleep deprivation. You say it a study that says 28% of the us population suffers from sleep deprivation, which seems really high to me. And, uh, you also say that is, uh, a factor in stress, recovery and trauma. And, uh, I know for myself, they say I could stand, I'll use, lose a little weight, you know, and they say, you've got to get enough sleep to lose weight. So talk about sleep deprivation and how it affects one going through stress and trauma.
Speaker 2 00:14:39 Absolutely. Chronic sleep deprivation is pretty a pretty big deal in our country actually right about that. And, um, chronic sleep happens when we have two weeks where we're not getting more than six hours a night. And for many Americans, six hours a night, they feel like they got a good night's sleep. But in terms of the experimental research that has looked at the effect cognitive effects and emotional effects, uh, and the immune effect, and even the weight gain effect six hours a night, each night, for me, that is the beginning of chronic sleep deprivation. And it's having negative effects on our cognition. It's making it harder for us to regulate our emotions. Um, it makes us more likely to not be able to pick up positive social cue or to take ambiguous cues and immediately make them threatening, which only turns more stress on it makes it impossible to turn stress off and that's age because we are our survival brain is not able to downregulate and it begins to mess with our hormones.
Speaker 2 00:15:57 So we produce more cortisol and we produce more of the, um, hormones involved in regulating appetite. And as a result, we tend to eat more and we tend to eat foods that are, um, when you be really, really hot, we tend to crave a lot of sugar and a lot of fat. And so it can contribute to weight gain in that way, because it's, it's kind of the Pullman to suppress appetite as in stop, the hormone to make more appetite is accelerated and all of that can lead to weight. Um, and it makes us much more likely to catch colds and viruses. And it has been linked even with cancer it's carcinogenic over the longterm, um, because it suppresses our immunity that chronic stress from sleep deprivation. So we tend to think asleep, not a big deal, but it actually is a huge deal. And from the other side, we do a lot of our recovery functions when we are asleep, getting restful sleep. So, um, when we're getting at least eight hours a night, our bodies and it's restful, it's not like we're not up all night. It's fragment our survival brain use that time to do a lot of its deeper repair and recovery functions in the brain. It's pruning parts of the brain to help us with memory. So we're less likely to get dementia later on and it's helping to repair tissues and organ systems. It's eliminating toxins. If people could just do one thing differently, I always recommend getting more sleep
Speaker 3 00:17:38 Is over, gone was stress because the sleep patterns are, um, people working overnight and staying up night. And you talked some about, uh, uh, just grinding it out and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and stuff like that. It sounds like we're kind of a mess with that situation.
Speaker 2 00:18:03 You know, you're, you're absolutely right lids. Um, I think that our collective window, the American collective window is very narrowed right now and you know, it isn't, I think the sleep is a piece of it. And I think that we're in a world that's really constantly making us be on. And then we're not, we're not consciously choosing to do recovery and our culture very much values and thinks of being overworked and really busy as being kind of important. And that's, um, it's really valued to constantly kind of be powering through. And then you add all the technology and the distractions that that causes us. Um, and it becomes quite a toxic myth for our minds and bodies. And we're seeing that in the extremely high rates of addictions, um, opioid epidemic in our country, uh, the, the, um, problems with anxiety and depression, those rates are much higher than they have been over the last hundred years.
Speaker 2 00:19:14 Um, you're seeing it in the way that people are feeling really stretched thin and no you're seeing it in the exploding rates of chronic diseases in our country. And we don't always think of these things as, um, we've seen in obesity, the weight gain, um, that's paired with the sleep problems too. And, and in the chronic pain, chronic pain is the number one kind of affliction that people in our country experience in chronic pain is a sign of, of a narrowed window. It's just, we don't usually think of these things as being related to stress or having turned stress on and not turning it off, but they are all. And, and that's why I wrote the book and why I try to connect some of those dots so that people don't feel powerless and helpless, that there are ways that we can make choices each day, little choices. Um, we might not be able to control a situation around us, but we can, we can always choose where we direct our attention. We can always choose our habits. Um, and habit change is not necessarily easy, but it's possible. And, um, I, I laid that out in the last day of second, third parts read books. The second half of the book,
Speaker 3 00:20:33 Let's move to intergenerational trauma. You talk a lot about that. So what does it mean and how do we know if we have it?
Speaker 2 00:20:45 That's a great question list. Um, so intergenerational trauma happens when, um, we have parents or grandparents. Could you hear my dog barking in that moment? Sorry about that. Uh, the FedEx job caught a truck to stop for my neighbor. And so she's gonna have to leave the neighborhood now. Um, so intergenerational trauma happen when we have parents who have narrowed window, um, from usually their own unresolved, chronic stress and trauma, and might be suffering this loss, you know, they might have just lost a loved one. They might, um, be dealing with the effects of domestic violence or, or, um, combat, you know, after coming back from combat, they, they might just have mental issues, mental illness, um, depression or anxiety, or they might be suffering from a chronic disease. Um, and as a result, they have a narrowed window and that affects the wiring, the initial neuro-biological flattering of the children.
Speaker 2 00:22:01 Um, parents with narrowed windows create drugs, social environment for their children, also wired narrow windows, um, because so much of our, all of our thinking brain and the important part of our nervous system that is in charge of recovery and in charge of social engagements and the way we relate to other people, our social wiring, all of that happens after starting in our last trimester of pregnancy, but then through our childhood and into adolescence. And so if our, if the family members that we're with are suffering, it will have implications on our own and wiring. And then we bring those patterns and that wiring into our own stuff, and it can continue generation after generation that way. It also shows up in genes, um, in genetic expression. Um, and it isn't that our genes are our destiny. Um, but, um, there's been research, that's looked intergenerationally. Most of it's been done with rodents because they have shorter lives and they can like really keep their lives controlled to track the genetic expression. It's harder to do that with humans, but there have been studies that have shown how great-grandfather, Mike's had one exposure to something from attic. It changed their metabolism. It changed the way that they related to stress. It changed their memory function and those same genetic expression changes ripple through four generations. So it might not even just be our parents. It might be that we're carrying the effects from
Speaker 4 00:23:46 Our grandparents, our great grandparents. Um, it's pretty powerful to understand this, but then also to realize we can change those things. We can undo the genetic epigenetic changes and change them back in a different direction. It all comes down to repeated experiences. And that's what emphasis teaching how to direct attention in ways that give us new repeated experiences that help to undo that wiring and to create more beneficial wiring.
Speaker 3 00:24:22 Believe it or not. We are running out of time. I got a couple more questions for you. I know this has been a great conversation. Um, so let's wrap it up by saying, um, how do you find a more empowered relationship with stress and trauma? That's kind of seems to be what the book is all about. So, you know, give us a, just a little bit of that.
Speaker 4 00:24:51 I think the most important thing for your listeners to keep in mind tonight is that resilience can be trained. Hello, Kristen, how are you?
Speaker 3 00:25:10 Uh, I'm doing pretty good. How are you doing?
Speaker 4 00:25:13 I'm good. Thank you. Are, uh, are you ready for me to start reading?
Speaker 3 00:25:17 Yes. Well, let me introduce you first. This is Chris author of the four wins. Uh, she's a New York times, number one, best selling author of a claim novels like the Nightingale, the great alone and winter garden. And tonight she's going to be reading to us and being interviewed about the four winds, your honor.
Speaker 4 00:25:37 Thank you. Uh, hope is a quite, I carry an American penny given to me by a man. I came to love. There were times in my journey when it felt as if that penny and the hope it represented were the only things that kept me going. I came West in search of a better life, but my American dream was turned into a nightmare by poverty and hardship and greed. These past few years have been a time of things, lost jobs, homes, food, the land we love turned on us broke us all. Even the stubborn old men who used to talk about the weather and congratulate each other on the seasons of bumper wheat crop, a man's gotta make, I'm sorry, a, man's got a fight out here to make a living. They'd say to each other, a man. It was always about the men. They seem to think it meant nothing to cook and clean and bear children and tend to gardens. But we, women of the great Plains work from sunup to sundown to toiled on wheat farms until we were as dry and baked as the land we love sometimes when close my eyes. I swear I can still taste the dust.
Speaker 1 00:26:49 Uh, that was Kristen Hannah reading from the four winds. Uh, why don't you give us a brief non spoiler, uh, synopsis of the story?
Speaker 4 00:26:59 Uh, sure. This is a novel set during the great depression and it focuses on a woman who, um, is a part of a family living on a small farm in the Texas panhandle during the depression when, uh, the dust bowl hits and they have to survive the drought and the dust and all of the difficulties and hardships that, uh, came with that time. And as the, as the situation worsens into interior rates, she has to decide, you know, whether to stay on her farm and keep fighting, uh, when the odds are so against her or take her children, uh, put them in the car and go West and hope for a better life in California. Um,
Speaker 1 00:27:52 I noticed I was reading the Nightingale too, and I noticed that both books are about the mid 20th century, or is that a place you're interested in or,
Speaker 4 00:28:03 You know, um, I guess yes and no. What I'm really interested in at the moment is the idea of bringing lost women's stories to the forefront, uh, tackling, you know, time periods in history that, that feel more predominantly traditionally male and putting women back into the equation and, and telling their stories and showing, you know, throughout history, how important, um, the women's contribution is and how heroic and brave we have proven to be in really difficult times.
Speaker 1 00:28:45 Elsa is very brave as are her children. In fact, and I, uh, am wondering too, what the stories of Elsa and other stories that you relate about women have to say to women today?
Speaker 4 00:29:02 Well, I think it's, you know, it's absolutely true that what is past is prologue. And, you know, we find ourselves in a time right now with the pandemic where the great depression feels, um, you know, more relevant than certainly I ever expected when I began writing it, you know, almost four years ago. And I think the message of, of history and the message of the great depression and the greatest generation is a reminder that, uh, we in America have been through hard times before, really hard times, and we have not survived, we have thrived. And so I think ultimately, uh, for me, it's about a message of hope and endurance and, uh, and resilience. And hopefully, you know, in reading this novel, the, the reader will become so immersed in this world. And so invested in Elsa. And so, you know, eager to turn the pages that, you know, they can't wait to get to the end of the story to find out what happens, but they will all be also be, I think, uh, educated and inspired along the way.
Speaker 1 00:30:20 It is very compelling. I just remember not being able to put the book down during the scenes from the dust bowl and the terrible things that happened when they're, uh, stuck in the house with the winds and the dust raging all around them, sitting underneath the, the table is just, uh, a very compelling and evocative thing. I'm curious about a research, I'm a historian. So I I'm interested in research. And I'm wondering, were you able to access any primary sources or did you have to mostly do secondary sources or did you have a librarian who helped you or how did that all work?
Speaker 4 00:30:59 Yeah, you know, I, I, I found some really, um, remarkable sources along the way. One of, uh, the most powerful, I think, um, voices that I found was an author named, uh, a writer named Sonora Bab, who came from the great Plains to California. And she worked in the migrant camps. Um, and her job was to speak to all of the people who came through, looking for work and trying to help them and get them housing and, and find out what their concerns were. And she wrote copious notes about every single person that, um, she spoke to. And all of those notes are at the university of Austin, at Texas at the Harry ransom center. And so I was able to sit there for days and just immerse myself. And it was like talking to this woman who had been there and who had talked to the very people that I was interested in, in recreating. So that was remarkable. And then in, uh, California in the San Joaquin Valley, they have in Bakersfield, uh, an event called Dustbowl days every October. And it draws people who are, who both lived there and, you know, worked at the camp and, and their children and grandchildren, and they, they come together and sort of try to keep that, that moment alive. And so there was a lot of great information and great people that I was able to talk to there.
Speaker 1 00:32:41 Talk some about the camps. Uh, I know I'm kinda going out of order here, but, uh, uh, the camps were again very compelling and, and, uh, um, well, there's two different questions first. Why don't you describe some of the camps and what they were like? Yeah,
Speaker 4 00:32:59 Well, what, what had happened was, you know, a few years before this book takes place, which is, um, you know, the mid thirties, California and the agricultural system in California had, had deported a lot of their Mexican workers. And so the farmers found themselves in a position where they didn't have enough people to pick their crops. And so they put out a lot of advertising and a lot of publicity and wrote articles and placed ads in, in newspapers across the country saying, come to California, there are jobs of plenty everything, you know, this is the land of milk and honey, you'll be happy here. And, you know, obviously this is in the center of the great depression. And so many people are out of work. And so, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands came West and as more came, you know, there were fewer and fewer and jobs until there were a lot of people and no jobs and no money, you know, they didn't have money for housing.
Speaker 4 00:34:08 And so originally they just set up and lived in tents or their cars, or shacks that they made of, of metal or found wood, anything that they could put together. Um, they live just in a long, you know, ditches in the Valley. And you can see a lot of these photos from Dorothea Lange. She was one of the great documenters of this, uh, this area and this era and her very famous migrant, uh, mother was taken, uh, at the pea fields in, in Nepal, Moe right there. And so there was just people living in just, you know, terrible squalor and, you know, yet these are proud Americans who, who came West to work and came West for a better life and found things more difficult. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:35:04 That picture is quite iconic. And I'm sure everybody's seen it. Um, you talked specifically, uh, at times about women's relationships with other women, friends, uh, sisters, mothers, uh, stepmothers in the case of, uh, Rose. And I talk about that,
Speaker 4 00:35:28 You know, this book, um, like Firefly lane, which I, I wrote probably, you know, more than a decade ago, they do focus on, on women and women's relationships. And, you know, the older I get in my life, the more I understand how absolutely crucial and critical my female friendships are, the way we, um, you know, celebrate, enjoy, and comfort each other and grief and get ourselves and our family, um, through a lot of difficult times. And, you know, one of the things I really wanted to say about this book, which is, I think primarily about, um, motherhood and a woman finding her voice, you know, that's really what it's about, but it was, it was important to me that Elsa find and maintain a really important friend along the way, because she hadn't had one before and learn how much, I guess, a girlfriend can enrich your life and unlock your soul to yourself.
Speaker 1 00:36:46 And, uh, that friend, uh, and the you're speaking, I can't remember her name, the one in California that she met
Speaker 4 00:36:56 Jane
Speaker 1 00:36:56 Jane, that's it? Um, that, that, uh, relationship, uh, was very important. And I was, I wasn't surprised that she got to be friends, but there was so much, uh, tension in the camps that I was wondering if they would get to be friends. How did you
Speaker 4 00:37:13 Decide that you were wondering if, what if
Speaker 1 00:37:15 They would get to be friends, Elsa and Jason?
Speaker 4 00:37:18 Yeah, I think, you know, um, that relationship, you know, Jean, um, is, like I said, Elsa's first real true female, um, friend, you know, except for her mother-in-law. And I think that she is a big part of what made all of that bearable for Elsa. And one of the things I loved was I was able to show through that relationship, uh, the generosity of these people who had come West to work and, you know, been treated badly and, and, you know, we're living hand to mouth and yet, uh, they cared deeply about each other and helped each other along. And, you know, we're brought together by their faith and their fellowship and their friendship. And so it was, um, it was just important to me that, that Elsa find and maintain a relationship like that in these really dark days,
Speaker 1 00:38:21 Your relationship with your daughter, it's not an easy relationship, although there's clearly a lot of love between them.
Speaker 4 00:38:28 Yeah. You know, that, um, I'm always interested in how readers, you know, uh, except a difficult adolescent daughter, because I think it depends on in some regards, whether you were a difficult, uh, adolescent daughter or whether you had one and, and whether you've been through that experience. But I think that, you know, for a lot of people, uh, a lot of mother daughter relationships, you know, the 13, 14, 12 years are really the worst. And in this particular, you know, situation when the farm is floundering and Elsa is failing and her marriage is failing. And her daughter just looks at her mother as, as a failure, as someone who is unable to right the ship of their lives on any level. And she judges her harshly for that. And of course, um, you know, as, as adolescents, we don't, we don't see the truth of our parents. And so, you know, part of Loretta, the characters journey in this novel is to, to actually see her mother and, uh, to not just learn, to admire and respect her, but to understand that this woman that she has discounted for so long has become a warrior. And, you know, by the end of the book has the strength and the, um, the grit, I guess, to not only stand up for what she thinks is right for her family and her children, but for other people who are afraid to speak out as well.
Speaker 1 00:40:19 Uh, I'm wondering if you would talk some to about Tony and Rose and their love for Elsa and how, uh, they were so kind and loving to her and they wouldn't have had it.
Speaker 4 00:40:34 Yeah. And I don't think they started out quite as welcoming. Um, but I think, you know, Elsa, uh, that was the first, I think, great gift of her life. You know, she had lived a very difficult, um, youth and young womanhood and in, you know, her, her marriage to rave and her becoming a Marinelli, even though it started off Rocky, it became sort of the family that she had always wanted. And I think that the relationship, first of all, the, the love affair as quiet as it is between Tony and Rose was so compelling to me, it was this, this reflection of, you know, the kind of people who make a commitment to each other and make a commitment to the land and, and stick with that commitment, you know, for the whole of their lives. And, and then they accepted, you know, Elsa who was so different from them. And Elsa really had to work to be accepted there. She had to learn how to be a farmer and how to, you know, be a homemaker and all these skills that she didn't have. But ultimately I think it was Rose embracing her and Rose, loving Elsa, which gave Elsa the steel that she needed in her spine to save her own children,
Speaker 1 00:42:05 Tony and Rose decide to stay in the dust bowl and not a lead for a California. Um, and I'm curious how you feel the differences between the people who stayed and the people who left, you know, how, how were they thinking, what was the thought? I know Tony Ann and Rose just loved their land and they couldn't bear to leave it. Um, and I'm wondering, you know,
Speaker 4 00:42:31 You know, if I, that was one of the most fascinating, um, sort of parts of my research was, you know, I'm reading about this, this terrible weather and this hardship and these dust storms and black Sunday and, and all of the difficulty, um, that the farmers of the great Plains were facing and the great majority of them stayed. And, you know, they stayed for the whole four years and just kept enduring and kept working their land and going to church and believing in a better tomorrow. And ultimately, you know, uh, that tomorrow came, ultimately they did survive. Ultimately the rain did fall again, the crops did grow again and they maintained their home and, and their, I think their vision of themselves as farmers on the great Plains. And so to me, again, that just speaks to, you know, the powerful endurance and faith and hope of, of what we call the greatest generation.
Speaker 1 00:43:46 So much strength, both from the people who say at an Elsa and as representative of the people who moved or left for California. Um, talk about the strength of the people who left.
Speaker 4 00:43:59 Well, you know what I mean, that, that's the, that's the fascinating thing about America, you know, um, we, we sort of celebrate all of these choices. You know, we celebrate the people who stayed and stuck it out. We celebrate the people who had the gumption and the courage, you know, to, um, to strike out into the unknown. I mean, I can't imagine, you know, putting my kids in a jalopy with no money and a little bit gas and just heading West with no job skills and, you know, hoping that I would do well and hoping that I would do better. Um, but I can tell you that for me personally, because I come from an adventure, adventure we're family, I come from the people who picked up stakes and moved, you know, all the time. I'm always looking for the next best thing. I know, you know, for a fact I would have been one of the people who picked up and left and, and looked for something better. And I think, you know, that's partially why I, I, so romanticized in my mind that people who stayed
Speaker 1 00:45:14 There are many similarities between the dust bowl migration period, and today's, uh, prejudice against Mexican workers and migrant workers and, uh, both legal and illegal. Um, could you kind of compare and contrast the time of the dust bowl?
Speaker 4 00:45:35 Well, you know, I mean, that was one of the, one of the reasons I wrote the book. One of the, the things that fascinated me was, you know, when I began this book, we were engaged and are currently engaged in, um, a big debate about immigration. And whenever I'm sort of, you know, interested in looking around at what's going on today, I'm always kind of drawn to when have we done this before? When have we been here before? What did it look like? And, and what can we learn from it? And I think that, you know, ultimately the message is like, the message always is that we need to treat people as we want to be treated. And that, that America is a land of immigrants. That's, you know, who we are,
Speaker 1 00:46:34 Uh, on another topic Elsa loves to read. And, uh, I have a couple of questions about this besides the age of innocence. What other books do you think influenced her?
Speaker 4 00:46:45 Well, you know, I was speaking to someone the other day and, and she said, you know, how do you think that Elsa had this strength, uh, to even make the red dress and leave her home and defy her parents, which is sort of the beginning of her journey. And, and how did she have a sense of self at all when her parents, um, treated her? So shabbily, and the answer to me was very much that the fictional world was Elsa was as real to Elsa as you know, her physical world. And so she read these books, uh, like Jane Eyre and weathering and age of innocence. And, uh, you know, Henry James, she read these books about women who, who dared in whatever way to defy the system and to stand up for themselves. And in, in reading those books, she was inspired to take a very small, um, step, you know, on her own journey. And I think, you know, as you look through the book, you see that even, you know, onto Loretta, this is a book that, that reveres books and librarians and, and, and reading in general.
Speaker 1 00:48:08 Absolutely. I was going to ask what books influenced you,
Speaker 4 00:48:14 What
Speaker 1 00:48:14 Books influenced you as a writer as a, yeah. It was a writer and a writer.
Speaker 4 00:48:21 Well, you know, um, she was reading actually one of the, the very first super, um, influential books for me was the wizard of Oz. Um, my grandmother gave that to me when I was about 10 years old. And, um, and I was thinking about that book a lot and what it would, what it said to me and, you know, in Seattle is not the same thing. It would say to a 13 year old on the great Plains during the dust bowl. And, um, let's see, I was hugely influenced and, um, by Lord of the rings and dune, I always loved those big Epic world-building novels.
Speaker 1 00:49:06 Uh, the, uh, when app gets his library card, it's very moving to me. Apparently this one mother was a librarian, but also it's very moving that he gets this library card. And I'm wondering, how did you feel when you got your first library card?
Speaker 4 00:49:21 No, I mean, I still remember the librarian, you know, I still remember my mother taking me down, holding my hand, you know, saying, okay, you're old enough. Now this is your responsibility. You get to pick your books, you read what you want, you return them. And it, it was, and it remains, you know, the opening of the world to a child. It's the, this is how we see worlds beyond our own and begin to imagine our place in them. And, uh, so yeah, there, there is that scene where, you know, the, the library card is a gift and I thought, boy, it doesn't matter whether you're rich or poor. This is, this is the gift to give a child
Speaker 1 00:50:08 It's magical. You know what? I have so many more questions, but we are running out of time. So, uh, I want to thank you for sharing your, uh, speaking with us and the interview. And, uh, we had been speaking with Kristin Hannah, uh, author of the four winds and many other many other books. Uh, when I told my friends I was interviewing you, they were all like, <inaudible> okay. I will. And thank you very much. All right. You, you too. Bye-bye bye-bye <inaudible> you are listening to right on radio on KFA 90.3 FM and streaming live on the
[email protected]. I'm Andy. And I'd like to thank our guests tonight, Kristin Hannah, plus our listeners who make this show possible with your support and donations, you can find more news and info about right on radio at kfa.org/program/rate on radio. Plus listen to recent episodes on our podcast. You can find it on the cafe site, Spotify, iTunes, or anywhere else. Podcasts can be found.
