Speaker 1 00:00:13 Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. You are listening to right on radio on cafe 90.3 FM and streaming live on the
[email protected]. I'm Josh Weber. And tonight I chat with Matthew econ author of going remote. How the flexible work economy can improve our lives and our cities taking readers on a journey through the new remote work economy, how people will configure their lives when they have more freedom to choose where they work and how they live going. Remote Mels ideas from labor, family and urban economics to paint a realistic picture of the future of workers. Then the last part of the hour, we will be playing an interview deep for within the right on radio archive, showcasing one of our legacy interviews, all this and more. So stay tuned to right on radio
Speaker 2 00:01:22 With the advent of the great pause, it served as a catalyst for rethinking how we organize our work patterns. Companies were forced to limit in-person interactions. The workplace enter the virtual meeting room online court hearings, era of tele vocation. This is the focus of Matthew econs research in his latest book going remote how the flexible work economy can approve our lives. And our cities Khan is a leading American educator in the field of environmental economics. He's the provost professor of economics at the university of Southern California. Matthew K. Welcome to right on radio.
Speaker 3 00:01:58 Thank you.
Speaker 2 00:01:58 So this has been a difficult two years for everyone and what exacerbates this difficulty is accepting. We will not be going back to the world on January, 2020 Matthew. You described working from home w F H as being an experiment that has been an experience. Good. What does this mean? And why has w F H proven to be the case?
Speaker 3 00:02:19 So back in 1977, I saw the first star wars movie, and that was an experience. Good for me. If you had told me what I was 11 years old, how much I'd loved this movie about outer space. I wouldn't have believed you till I saw it. And in a similar sense, work from home has been this experience good that you, I don't believe back in 2019, that we would've known how much we gained from it. For those privileged among us, who've had the opportunity to engage in it. And now that we've experienced it, I argue in my new book that many of us want at least on a part-time basis to continue to engage in work from home because of all the new freedoms. It offers us
Speaker 2 00:03:03 Prior to COVID. What were the main social challenges that remote work has now mitigated?
Speaker 3 00:03:09 So I talk at length in the book on this point, um, Enrico mere wrote this great book, the new geography of jobs, where, and he wrote this book 12 years ago. And he argued that America has these centers of really productive companies, Silicon valley, New York, Boston, Seattle. And so in these elite superstar cities, salaries were very high superstars prospered there, but home prices were really high and many middle class people were stuck in traffic. I argue in my new book that a new geography of economic opportunity will open up because of work from home because there's a potential to spread out. If you love the city of Baltimore, the chance to live there, but to work for a tech firm, perhaps at Amazon HQ two, if you have a sick mother in Missouri, the opportunity to tend to your mother while still doing your job of all these new permutations that allow our diverse were diverse people to lean into our responsibilities and our, our passions. If you are a skier or a poet versus back in 2019, when we were tied to certain superstar places where many of us didn't wanna live there, but that's where the action was.
Speaker 2 00:04:26 You know how Paul crewman, he believes life will mostly resume in 2023, roughly the same capacity as it was in 2019. You agree with them in part, but think what the increased flexibility, remote work offers, many people move away from cities will this cause a shift in other industries you think to move toward rural regions, will we see a rise of new cities?
Speaker 3 00:04:47 So let's unpack that because this is a great question. Paul crewman is a macro economist, and I agree with him that New York city at San Francisco have a great future, but I think their future will be as consumer cities where those who really want to be in these cities, young people like my son will wanna be in these places for those who are middle aged and established, you can go to a New York city when you want to have a cultural experience when you wanna see a Jerry Seinfeld. But I argue in my book that new opportunities will be created for cities like a Buffalo. There are cities. Now there are second tier cities. And I don't mean that pejoratively affordable. Second tier cities like Baltimore and Buffalo, who are now competing for work from home workers. As they say to the American people, we have affordable housing, uh, and, and we have good quality of life here come to our city.
Speaker 3 00:05:41 And, and, and you can have the win-win of being connected to these superstar firms via the internet, but at your own pace of find what you are looking for in terms of a diverse experience, an example, I lived in Baltimore for two years and it's a micro brewery hub. So if you love drinking beer, there's affordable housing, 75% cheaper than in Washington, DC in Baltimore, if that's your thing, but that city didn't have his superstar firms located there. And so you can now live in Baltimore and work for these superstar firms. If you have the skills to qualify for these, as you work remotely,
Speaker 2 00:06:18 My own personal experience, and what you observe in the book, younger workers are more inclined to work in person. Whereas older workers prefer working from home. Why is it critical for young workers to have in person contact in their life, especially when it comes to early earning dynamics?
Speaker 3 00:06:33 So this is a key question. I think of my son at my 20 year old son and for every young person, cities open up this opportunity to learn what you're good at for more face to face contact with other young people. And for mentors, it's very important for young people to figure out what they're good at and what they wanna do. And they're more likely to figure that out if they are mentored through face to face interaction. And so something that I wrestle in the book with, which you just alluded to is for middle aged established people, uh, to avoid commuting and to live a comfortable lifestyle. They have an incentive to, to locate where they're passionate a skier's gonna head to, to the mountains, a Surfer's gonna head to the surfing zone, but there's always a new group of young people who need to be mentored.
Speaker 3 00:07:22 And I argue in the book that the king Solomon solution is for companies to identify middle-aged mentors and reward these men and women for taking on these tests because you are right, the young will always wanna be where the action is and cities with their density and excitement that face to face interaction that it Lazer emphasizes that's gonna continue. And so recruitments right about that. These, that these cities I argue on my book that work from home will make cities even stronger because those who really wanna be there will be there. And those who are only there for the short commute will head to the Hills.
Speaker 2 00:07:57 You argue in the book that with more people working from home, it'll create a new, a new quality of life opportunities for workers who do not want to work from home. How so?
Speaker 3 00:08:07 So you are right to ask this question and my editors pushed me on your point. My editors turned to me and said, Matt, yes, you are an optimist, but is your argument elitist, as you keep talking about the benefits to people who are eligible to work from home, and these tend to be educated people who worked from a computer, kind of like a professor. And as I sat down and thought about this very important question, I came back to the local multiplier effect. And let me explain if a bunch of work from home workers choose to move to a Bozeman Montana or a Boise, Idaho. This creates a local service economy for people who are part of the service economy, working at a micro brewery, working as a dentist, working in construction, building homes for these new work, from home workers. And so I don't think it's fair to call the work from home revolution elitist, because whenever you get geographic pockets of well paid people, this creates a lucrative service economy. If you love to cut people's hair, if you love to be a poet and to educate the work from home workers' children about poetry, there will be new opportunities there. And so that's what I meant by the local multiplier effect. I, I realize that's jargon.
Speaker 2 00:09:23 What does your research say about the productivity of parents working at home with children has this proven to be for families?
Speaker 3 00:09:30 So this is an open question. Here's what I don't know. And I love your question. We have experienced work from home during the COVID crisis, and I know many young parents, and I know the challenge they faced as children have been home. My book is almost a piece of science fiction that it's sort of set four years from now when fingers cross COVID is in our rear view mirror. And so what I love about your question, and I'm an, I'm always a relentless optimist in an economy where children are actually in school. Parents who will be commuting less, will have more opportunities for time at home. Fathers can be more involved with their children who have traditionally commuted. The parents can better share the chore wars and the responsibilities at home. So I actually don't fully know the answer to your question because we haven't seen work from home when life is back to normal and children are back in school, but your question is crucial. Um, I argue conveniently in the book that because we were commuting so much and because commuting is so innovating when parents have more time, when they can sleep more, when they can avoid commuting on snow days of just the reduction in stress in their life and how children benefit when parents are in better spirits and have more time to spend with them.
Speaker 2 00:10:50 You also discussed in the book how with more employees, we could see an increase in civic engagement. What cases have we seen in this since the beginning of the pandemic?
Speaker 3 00:11:00 So I have been influenced by Robert Putnam, the famous Harvard scholar who wrote bowling alone. So in Robert Putnam's bowling alone that he published roughly 20 years ago, he argued that Americans are not engaged in their residential communities because we're watching television. And, and, uh, that's an interesting hypothesis. And I realize, um, a young guy, like you might not even know what a television is. My, my son doesn't watch television, but in Putnam's point was could we build a stronger America where people are more engaged with each other and not just outta partisan politics, but because they know their neighbors, they, they care about their neighbors and an optimistic claim. As more Americans work from home on at least a part-time basis, they will know their neighbors better and will be more vested in their communities rather than just a place you go to, to sleep, to rev up for the next day of work.
Speaker 3 00:11:57 And so we haven't, I'm slightly sidestepping your excellent question. <laugh> because again, we, we haven't really run this experiment yet. A hypothesis in my book is web CS behind us. And when workers are at home or working from anywhere more, they're gonna see their friends more. And I wanna make a new point because we untether where people live from, where they work. People will live in a community that they're vested to an example, if you and I are a family and we love to ski, if we can now live in a ski area, but that works somewhere productive because we're working from home. We might be very involved in environmental causes in our ski area because we want to protect the environment. And so it's not that the same guy, all of a sudden starts to go to church all the time. It's that when you can live in an area that you are passionate about, you will take your scarce time and allocate it to be more involved in the community, because this is your passion. You're now in the right place. When in 2019, we tended to locate in places to reduce our commute
Speaker 2 00:13:03 With remote access to work. This significantly increases our personal freedom by reducing our contingencies. What are some other examples of personal freedoms that you predict w F H eligible workers will have in the future?
Speaker 3 00:13:15 So in one of the back chapters of the book, I talk about something that I'm passionate about. I have worried that many children are not receiving the education that they deserve because their parents are raising them in center cities, where they're sort of a monopoly for local public schools. I argue in the book that if new work from home communities form, there'll be new jurisdictions and new experimentation with ways of educating children and a, and a silver lining of this, you might say, Matt, this sounds elitist that these new work from home kids will be, get good educations at the fringe of a New York city or at the fringe of a Los Angeles. As we learn about how to educate children under different rules of the game, those lessons can be incorporated by big city school districts. So this comes back to the experimentation point of, uh, uh, another freedom when you are untethered from where you live from, where you work is to locate in areas where there's sort of a tabular Raza, and we can try new ways to educate children. So I, I talk about policy experimentation in the book as an example of personal freedom,
Speaker 2 00:14:33 30, 32% of all us jobs could be done from home conclude one research team. I know that you cite in the book, but this varies from industry from industry finance and data analysis. For example, could have 90% of the jobs working for home while only 11% of workers retail can do the work at home. Do you think more industries will have more availability of WFH workers in the future?
Speaker 3 00:14:55 So this is a crucial question, which Nick bloom of Stanford and Jonathan Dingle of the university of Chicago, there's great economists studying this. Here's an idea from the book because firms are for profit firms and because workers want this ability to not always have to go to the mothership. I think that more and more firms are gonna think through how to incorporate hybrid work. So some workers might be only at the office two days a week. Some might be there two days a month. I think we're gonna see much more of tailoring jobs to our diversity. And I'd wanna make a point a crucial issue. Here is the big data revolution. Uh, there have been concerns in the past when workers work from home, that they could be shied from home as the boss, can't monitor them and know what they're doing in this age of big data.
Speaker 3 00:15:48 It's increasingly possible for workers to get their work done. And for the boss to know this, there is a question of how bosses get to know their workers, how you build spree to core. So that workers don't feel like free agents, that this is all just a temp economy, but I claim that more and more workers will prepare themselves for the work from home economy, because they'll anticipate the personal freedoms it will offer. And firms face a retention issue. Skilled workers are a key component to having a great firm. And so those firms that can configure their work to be work from home friendly will be more likely to thrive because they will attract and retain great workers who will be happy
Speaker 2 00:16:33 On this issue of thriving at work, in a home. Could you talk about what personality types thrive in an atmosphere of working from home?
Speaker 3 00:16:40 So I've been debating my students on this. Um, so I'm a guy with slight self control issues. And so there's an interesting issue of, uh, so someone who could thrive at home is a disciplined person who can get out of their pajamas and, and can keep the fridge shut at, at that shut not. And it's, it's somebody who on their own can get the task done on their todo list that day, knowing that if they get their task done, they are free to see their friends, to exercise, to attend a child's play, to take care of responsibilities. So I think a key issue is self control. So to say that again, in behavioral economics today, there's a lot of talk, uh, uh, and research on self-control and discipline for those who need the discipline of putting on a jacketed tie and shaving and getting to the office work from home might not offer the same benefits for those who can focus and are disciplined almost in a military way. Work from home offers the possibility of having more leisure type in your day. As you get done, what you're supposed to get done, and they get on to the rest of your day.
Speaker 2 00:17:57 Something I didn't consider be before reading your work is how w HF workers will less risks for boom bus cycles, even their jobs change. They can still have access to viable work. Moly. Is that fair to say
Speaker 3 00:18:12 Yes. So a story that economists talk about is Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, the great steel city of the 1950s. And I wanna tell the following urban and environmental story, if Matthew was a steel worker in the 1960s, and I owned a house in Pittsburgh as Pittsburgh declined as a steel city, yes, the air got cleaner and I've studied that, but Matthew gets punched twice. My family has roots in Pittsburgh. I have my job in my house in Pittsburgh. And so as the skill factory shut, I'm more likely to be unemployed and the resale value of my house plummets in a work from home economy. If Matthew has skills that I can sell on Upwork, we could, or on other platforms we could remain in Pittsburgh. My family could keep it social networks, and I could at least in the short run, earn money on the internet. So in that sense, I agree with you that the ability to Moonlight on the internet in work from home gigs opens up the possibilities of exploring your talents and things you like to do for those tasks that you qualify for and allows you to diversify spatial risk. Because in, in the past, when there wasn't work from home shocks to the local economy, like a closing of a factory can devastate a family, you lose your job and your home's value plummets. So your savings is worthless just as you've been punched by the unemployment shock. And so work from home offers this implicit insurance contract for those who have skills to sell on the internet.
Speaker 2 00:19:49 My last question for you, it's very early in knowing the full ramifications of a future with w FH workers. I think you've definitely said this. I was curious though, if you discovered anything in your research related to educational forecasting in relation to WFH workers, has there been a change to where people are pursuing different degrees knowing they provide more options for working at home?
Speaker 3 00:20:12 So I think that this is a great question that we don't know the answer to yet. I argue in the book that, uh, I make a point when you play chess, you think a few moves ahead that I'm not a good chess player. So perhaps I'm not a good chess player because I don't think a few moves ahead. A good chess player thinks about what the board might look like in three or four moves. And maybe Gary Casper can see it in eight moves in a similar sense for young people and middle aged people thinking about how to be viable in the emerging economy and have the opportunities that I talk about in my book. There are skills to make yourself more ready for the work from home economy. So I'd encourage listeners to go to the Upwork platform or other platforms with internet gig work and take a look at what would be jobs they would enjoy doing and what skills are required for those jobs.
Speaker 3 00:21:08 So I'm an educator and many economics majors turn to me and say, what can I do with this degree? Almost like a chess player. I think we're gonna see more young people taking a look at what would be work from home careers that they would find satisfying and what skills do they need to qualify for those? And if America is fair, you don't have to go to Harvard or Yale to get those skills you, that Google or other certifiers can teach you these skills in a fair America, there'll be ways to use the internet, perhaps Khan academy videos, such that people with grit and determination can acquire these skills because America will be stronger. If work from home is not elitist. And you correctly pointed out the current facts that only a third of American workers in, in occupations and industries are currently qualified for the jobs. The optimist in me thinks that more firms are gonna figure out how to integrate work from home into their job package. And more workers will acquire the skills to be qualified for these jobs because of the personal freedoms. It opens up.
Speaker 2 00:22:16 You've been listening to my conversation with Matthew econ talking about his latest book, going remote, how the flexible work economy can improve our lives and our cities, a hopeful study of how shifts remote work can change all our lives for the better. Thanks for being on our,
Speaker 0 00:22:46 Okay, go ahead. All right.
Speaker 4 00:22:49 My book just closed right there. It is.
Speaker 4 00:22:52 Sometimes objects seem like they've witnessed history. I used to imagine that the wooden table we sat around during Kramer Shakespeare seminar. Our senior year was as old as Columbia that it had been in that room since 1754 edges were smooth by centuries of students like us. Which of course couldn't be true, but that's how I pictured it. Students sitting there through the revolutionary war, the civil war, both world wars, Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf. It's funny. If you ask me who else was was with us that day. I don't think I could tell you. I used to be able to see all their faces so clearly, but 13 years later, I remember only you and professor Kramer. I can't even recall the name of the TA who came running late into the classroom later, even than you Kramer had just finished calling roll. When you pushed open the door, you smiled at me, your dimple, making a brief appearance as you off your diamond backs cap and stuck it into your back pocket.
Speaker 4 00:23:48 Your eyes landed quickly on the empty seat next to mine. And then you did too. And you are Kramer asked as you reached into your backpack for a notebook and a pen, Gabe, you said Gabriel Sampson Kramer checked the paper in front of him. Let's aim for on time for the rest of the semester, Mr. Sampson, he said, class starts at nine. In fact, let's aim for early you noded. And Kramer started talking about themes in Julius Caesar. We at the height are ready to decline. He read there is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood leads onto fortune emitted. All the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries on such a full sea. Are we now afloat? And we must take the current when it serves or lose our ventures. I trust you all did the reading who can tell me what Brutus is saying about fate and free will here.
Speaker 4 00:24:38 I'll always remember that passage because I've wondered so many times since that day, whether you and I were faded to meet in Kramer, Shakespeare seminar, whether it's destiny or decision that has kept us connected all these years, or a combination of both taking the current. When it serves after Kramer spoke, a few people flipped through the text in front of them. You ran your fingers through your curls and they sprung back into place. Well, you said, and the rest of the class joined me in looking at you, but you didn't get to finish the TA whose name. I can't remember came racing into the room, sorry. I'm late. She said a plane hit one of the twin towers. It came on TV just as I was leaving for class. No one knew the significance of her words, not even she did was the pilot drunk.
Speaker 4 00:25:21 Kramer asked, I don't know, the TA said taking a seat at the table. I waited, but the newscasters had no idea what was going on. They said it was some kind of prop plane. If it had happened. Now, all of our phones would've been blowing up with news pings from Twitter and Facebook and push notifications from the New York times. But communication, then wasn't yet instant and Shakespeare. Wouldn't be interrupted. We all shrugged it off. And Kramer kept talking about Caesar. As I took notes, I watched the fingers of your right hand, unconsciously rub AGA against the wood grain of the table. I doodled an image of your thumb with its ragged nail and toward cuticle. I still have the notebook somewhere in a box filled with lit hum and contemporary civilizations. I'm sure it's there.
Speaker 5 00:26:02 Very good. You've been listening to Jill Santo polo reading from her debut adult novel, the light we lost. She is the author of three successful children's and young adult series and works as the editorial director of fel books. And she's also an adjunct professor in the new school's MFA program. Jill Sano. Welcome to right on radio.
Speaker 4 00:26:27 Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 5 00:26:30 Um, let's start with that opening passage. They meet on nine 11 as you read there, and then they, at some point lose touch and they meet again as the us is about to invade Iraq. And so mm-hmm <affirmative> um, Lucy and Gabe, Lucy is the narrator, um, have this sort of, um, I don't know. Yeah, I guess you read about, you read about that too. This destiny or, or fate or decision, um, all sort of gets wrapped up in these big events, doesn't it?
Speaker 4 00:27:03 Yeah, it does. Um, you know, I, I sort of felt like, especially going to college and being actually in a Shakespeare lecture on, um, September 11th, 2001, that so much of my, the way I interact with the world and, and sort of my point of view on, on what's possible or what could happen, um, is really tied in with world events. You know, I, I know that I, and a lot of my friends after experiencing September 11th, kind of realize that this is something that could happen and that there are no guarantees in life and that, you know, there might not be a tomorrow, so you better make today count. Um, and I think that that's kind of what propels Lucy and Gabe forward in this book. And, and I think, you know, being at Columbia on September 11th, 2001, I think it's what propels a lot of my friends and I forward mm-hmm <affirmative>. Um, so I, I wanted to kind of put that in here.
Speaker 5 00:28:02 Yeah.
Speaker 4 00:28:03 Along with other world events, that kind of
Speaker 5 00:28:07 Sure. Well, let's talk a little bit about, uh, about Lucy, who is the narrator and we'll get to Gabe in a moment.
Speaker 4 00:28:13 Sure.
Speaker 5 00:28:16 So just, just tell us a little bit about Lucy who Lucy
Speaker 4 00:28:18 Tell a little bit about Lucy. Yeah, yeah. Um, so Lucy, Lucy starts the story, um, in college kind of trying to figure out what she wants to do and what she wants to be when she, you know, grows up in a year or two. Yeah. Before she's concerned. And, um, what she kind of realizes after the passage that I read to you is that she really wants her life to matter, and she wants her life to, to make a difference. Um, and that that's something that, that kind of she's pursuing throughout her life and guides the choices she makes, because she wants to make sure that she's able to do that. Um, and I think that that that's part of what connects, but she and Gabe connect about. Yeah. And also part of what drives him apart.
Speaker 5 00:29:08 Right. Because he kind of has the same notion that he wants to, to make a positive mark on the world as well.
Speaker 4 00:29:15 That's right. I mean, he, he wants to be a, a photojournalist and he wants to sort of share stories with all the people around the world so that, so that they can, you know, feel like they're experiencing them as well. And, um, that is sort of at odds with Lucy's dream of trying to, um, create television shows for children as, as a kind of way to shape the future and, and shape the minds of children as they learn and grow. Um, so she needs to stay put, and he needs to leave. And, and that's kind of a, a conundrum mm-hmm
Speaker 5 00:29:52 <affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative>. So let's talk a little bit about destiny versus the decisions we make. You, you had read about that in your opening passage there. Um, and you come back to that theme several times during the course of the book, uh, talk about what you, what you really think about that and, and what your characters think about that.
Speaker 4 00:30:12 Yeah. I mean, I think it is the struggle of the book, uh, for the characters, whether, whether they feel like they were destined to meet that day and, and they were meant to be part of their lives or, or whether they just keep choosing each other, um, regardless of what else they each have going on. And I think I kind of fall somewhere in the middle. I don't, I don't think I have an absolute thought, um, on that, on that scale. Okay. Because I do think that there are certain things that just happen in our lives. Like, I don't know if they're destined to happen or if they, You know, mm-hmm,
Speaker 5 00:30:53 <affirmative> just happen. I don't know, happen like destiny after the fact. Yeah.
Speaker 4 00:30:56 Right. Um, but then we choose what to do with those. Yeah. You know, and I, and I feel really, really strongly that life isn't about what happens to us, but about what we do with what happens to us and how we use those actions and, and those experiences moving forward.
Speaker 5 00:31:14 Yeah. Well, you, you sort of imply at, at one, or at least one point, maybe in maybe a couple of points that fate has power. And so I guess if you're not completely convinced that that fate or destiny, uh, or karma or whatever exists, then maybe the power of fate is in, in what it, what it seemingly, uh, does and how you react to that fate.
Speaker 4 00:31:38 Yeah. I mean, I think that's true that, that, You know, there, there are certain things that happen, for example, you know, someone could have a car accident and die and then the people around them Could be affected by that event that, you know, perhaps was faded, perhaps seems faded, but then there it's their choice, how they respond to that. Right.
Speaker 5 00:32:04 Right. Um, and, and Gabe and Lucy have very different childhoods too. Talk a little bit about their, their different childhoods.
Speaker 4 00:32:12 Yeah. Um, you know, Lucy has kind of an almost idyllic suburban Connecticut upbringing. Um, She has an older brother who she has a great relationship with. She has parents who she's close enough to they're there for her. Um, she's there for them. And Then Gabe Is the child of two artists who, um, And, and his father is, is kind of very volatile and leaves the family when Gabe is relatively young. And then it's just him and his mom, uh, trying to figure out How to, how to exist on their own. And, um, And, and Gabe trying to come to terms with the fact that he's actually happier without his father in the house. Yeah. Um, and then he spends a lot of his life trying to make sure he's not going to be his father.
Speaker 5 00:33:18 Right. Right. And when he turns 10, his mother makes him a kaleidoscope and, uh, that has a big impact on him.
Speaker 4 00:33:27 Yeah. Um, she, cuz she's an artist and she creates art, you know, everywhere. She, she sort of believes art can be everywhere. And she turns the house into a kaleidoscope for him because he, when his father left had, had sort of latched onto his toy kaleidoscope as something he could just watch and spin and kind of get lost in. Um, so she turns the house into a kaleidoscope and, and that's kind of the moment he realizes that they're safer without his father home, because if his father was home, he might have destroyed that kaleidoscope that his mother created in the house. Mm-hmm
Speaker 5 00:34:05 <affirmative> and Lucy's mother, um, as you point out relatively early in the book has given up her career, uh, which of course, many women did back then. Mm-hmm <affirmative> um, and that influences Lucy quite a bit too, doesn't it?
Speaker 4 00:34:20 Yeah. I mean, her mother, her mother in the book, uh, was a lawyer and decided when she had kids to no longer practice law and the way Lucy sees it, her mother went from being her own person to being Lucy's mother or Jason's mother or Don's wife, and became defined by who she was in relationship to someone else. Um, and Lucy very much wants to be defined on her own as her own person. Um, I don't know what her mother would've said about that, but that's how Lucy sees
Speaker 5 00:34:57 It. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's, it's interesting that everything is told through Lucy's perspective. So, um, Lucy and Gabe and Darren who, um, comes in a little later in the book all gets seen through Lucy's eyes and of course, memory being what it is and, uh, self-perception being what it is. That's not always completely accurate.
Speaker 4 00:35:21 Yeah. I mean, I think that that's kind of one of the fun parts about writing in a first person narrator, is that you are getting their perspective. It's not an objective perspective. Um, so it's very possible that had Gabe written this book, um, he would have seen things differently or understood things differently than Lucy has because she also doesn't always have all the information. She has her own information, but she doesn't know what Gabe is thinking unless he tells her mm-hmm <affirmative>. Um, so sometimes she can guess yeah. Um, or suspect, or, or, you know, thinks she knows, but she doesn't necessarily.
Speaker 5 00:36:04 Right. And even when he tells her, he may not be telling her the exact 100% truth, he might be telling her partly what he thinks she wants to hear.
Speaker 4 00:36:12 Exactly. So she only knows what she's been told or what she suspects. Yeah. Um, but you know, I'm, I'm working on a new book now and it's a, a third person more OmniGen narrator who kind of knows more than the characters know, which is always interesting. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 5 00:36:33 Yeah, it's a different approach. And the other thing that's a little bit different about it is that you're, you're writing this as Lucy telling Gabe all this information. Mm-hmm, <affirmative> a lot of which he presumably already knows since he was there, when it happened. That's just an interesting way to approach telling a story. Talk about why you chose to do that as, as Lucy talking to Gabe.
Speaker 4 00:36:57 Sure. So, um, so the reason I chose to do it was this, this book came out of, um, a horrible breakup and, and I was dating someone for a while and I thought it was gonna be the person I was with forever and it wasn't. Um, and or he wasn't. And then I started writing this story and people ask if it's autobiographical, which it's not. But I like to say that it's emotionally autobiographical because a lot of what Lucy feels or things that I was feeling at that point in time. Um, and one of the things I was trying to capture is the idea of feeling so intimately connected with someone that they kind of become part of your inner monologue. And I remember, um, when I was dating this, this man, um, I would sort of store things away all day in my head of, oh, what would he think of this?
Speaker 4 00:37:51 Or I have to tell him this, or, oh, there's a new restaurant. We should go there. I'll have to let him know about that. And, and it, it became the, he became part of my inner monologue. And what I was trying to do here with the second person address is capture that intimacy of someone, meaning so much to you and becoming so much part of who you are, that they are in your head all the time. Um, and I had, I had started writing it that way. And, and then I brought the book to a writer's group and, um, one of my friends there asked me why I had done it and I gave her that answer. And she said, well, that's all well and good, but you need a plot reason for her to be doing this. How is this ending? Hmm. And I wasn't really sure. So I kind of made something up on the spot and she said, well, if that's gonna be the ending, you can't use that narrative device. Yeah. And I said, oh, well then that's not gonna be the ending. I'll come up with another one. <laugh> cause I really wanted to use it.
Speaker 5 00:38:50 Sure, sure. Well, it's just, it's, it's different and unique. And I don't, I mean, I don't know that I agree with your friend in that you need a plot reason for it, or you need a specific plot reason for it, but, uh, um, to each his or her own, um, let's listen, if we can, to another section from the book.
Speaker 4 00:39:07 Sure.
Speaker 4 00:39:13 I put down the, oops, sorry. I'm gonna start again. Sure. I put the martini down, but changed my mind, taking it with me as I walk toward you wobbling only slightly on my high heels. Thanks. I said sliding onto the stool on your left. Happy birthday. You answered nice crown. I laughed and slipped it off. It might look better on you. I said, wanna try. You did crushing your curls with the paper. Stunning. I told you, you smiled and put the crown on the bar in front of us. I almost didn't recognize you. You said you did something new to your hair. Bangs. I told you pushing them to the side. You stared at me like you did in your kitchen. Seeing me from all angles, beautiful with or without bangs. You slurred your words a little. And I realized that you were even drunker than I was, which made me wonder why you were alone lit at 7:00 PM on a Thursday night.
Speaker 4 00:40:04 How are you? I asked is everything okay? You propped your elbow on the bar and leaned your cheek into your hand. I don't know. You said Stephanie and I broke up again. I hate my job and the us invaded Iraq. Every time I see you, the world is falling apart. I didn't know how to respond to that. The information about Stephanie or your assertion, that the world was falling apart. So I took another sip of my martini. You kept going baby. The universe knew I needed to find you tonight. You're like Pegasus. I'm a wing TA. Like in the, I asked you a male wing TA. No, you said you're definitely female. I smiled. You continued talking, but Eron never would've defeated the Camaro without Pegasus Pegasus made him better. You said he got to fly above everything. All of the pain, all of the hurt.
Speaker 4 00:40:54 And he became a great hero. I hadn't understood that myth the same way. I'd read it as one about teamwork, about cooperation and partnership. I'd always liked how Pegasus had to give Valon permission to ride him. But I could tell your interpretation was important to you. Well, thank you for the compliment. I think though, I might have preferred a comparison to Athena harra, even a Gorgan the corners of your mouth. Quirked up? Not a, Gorgan no snakes on your head. I touched my hair. You haven't seen how I look. First thing in the morning. I said, you looked at me like you wanted to, did I ever tell you I was sorry. You asked for what happened with us. I'm not sorry that I kissed you. I mean, but you shrugged. I'm sorry about what happened after I was trying to do the right thing with Stephanie.
Speaker 4 00:41:39 Life is complicated. I finished for you. It's okay. It's forever ago now. And you did apologize twice. I still think about you, Lucy. You said looking into your empty glass of whiskey. I wondered how many you'd had. I think about that fork in the road. What would've happened? If we'd taken it two roads diverged. Now I would laugh if you called us a road, but then it felt so romantic. You quoting Robert Frost to me. I looked over at Alexis and Julia. They were watching us as they drank their martinis. You okay? Julia mouth to me, I noded. She tapped her watch and shrugged. I shrugged back and she noded. I looked at you, gorgeous, fragile wanting me my birthday present from the universe. Perhaps the thing about roads I said is sometimes you happen upon them again. Sometimes you get another chance to travel down the same path.
Speaker 4 00:42:30 God, we were lame or maybe just young. So, so young, you looked at me then, right at me, your blue eyes, glassy, but still magnetic. I'm going to kiss you. You said, as you tip toward me and then you did, and it felt like a birthday wish come true. Will you come to my apartment tonight? Lucy, you asked as you tucked a rogue block of hair behind my ear, I don't wanna go home alone. I saw the sorrow in your eyes, the loneliness, and I wanted to make it better to be yours. Your bandage, your antidote. I've always wanted to fix things for you. I still do. It's my Achilles heel or perhaps my pomegranate seed like pers it's what keeps drawing me back. I lifted your fingers to my lips and kissed them. Yes. I said, I will.
Speaker 5 00:43:13 Very good. That is Jill Santo polo reading from her debut, adult novel, the light we lost and you're listening to right on radio on K F a I, one of the things that strikes me about Lucy is that she has these dreams for life and Gabe has his dreams for life. And she gets angry with him for wanting his own dreams, which are not exactly the same as her dreams. Talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 4 00:43:46 I think, I think it's that she gets angry when she realizes that their dreams really aren't compatible and that his dreams mean more to her, to him rather than she does. Yeah. You know, and I think, I think part of what Lucy learns in this story and maybe part of what I was exploring in this story too, is that I think life decisions are so much about what's the most important to thing to a person at that at a certain point in time. So, you know, for Gabe at a certain point in time, his career dreams were more important than Lucy, than his relationship with Lucy was mm-hmm <affirmative>. And I think she had a very difficult time with that. Um, and I think that's not necessarily always Going to be true for Gabe. Yeah. But at that moment in time, it was, and I think that, you know, Lucy also has different priorities and different things that are more important to her in the course of her life. Yeah.
Speaker 5 00:44:57 I noticed also that my attitude toward Lucy changed, uh, throughout the book, I, I started off thinking of her one way and by the end I thought of her in a different way. Did, did that happen for you or is that something that you intended or was that just maybe that's just, uh, all readers of course sometimes do that.
Speaker 4 00:45:15 No. I mean, I think I wanted her to grow up a little bit over the course of 13 years, you know, and figure out who she was and, And figure out, you know, as her life unfolded where her priorities were and what, What kind of she wanted and why she chose what she chose to do. Mm-hmm <affirmative> um, you know, she starts the book at, I think 21 and she ends the book at, I think 35. Um, so, so she changes throughout the story, I think. Right?
Speaker 5 00:45:53 Yeah. Well, I really enjoyed it. Um, we're just about out of time, uh, you say you're working on another one, is that, uh, a similar adult novel or
Speaker 4 00:46:03 It is, yeah, it's an adult novel called more than words and it's coming out February 5th, 20, 19. Oh, okay. And it's, um, it's also about love and loss, but it's about, uh, a woman who loses her father, her father dies and she finds all of these secrets that he's left behind. Okay. And they change her perception of him and of her childhood and her parents' relationship and, and change the way she kind of sees herself in the world and, and interacts with the men in her life as well.
Speaker 5 00:46:31 Well, we'd love to see it. Uh, we're outta time. This is Steve MCRM speaking with Jill Santa polo about her a, uh, debut adult novel, the light we lost Jill Santa polo. Thanks for being on right on radio.
Speaker 4 00:46:44 Thank you for having me.
Speaker 5 00:46:46 And now this,
Speaker 1 00:48:07 You are listening to right on radio on K in 90.3 FM streaming live on the
[email protected]. I'm Josh Weber. I'd like to thank our special guest tonight, Matthew econ and all of our listeners without your support and donations K would not be possible. You can find more news and info about right on radio k.org/right on radio. You can listen to all of your favorite, right on radio episodes on Spotify, iTunes, Google podcast, apple podcast, and so on.
