Speaker 0 00:00:01 <inaudible>
Speaker 1 00:01:48 You are listening to right on radio on cafe 90.3 FM and streaming live on the
[email protected]. I'm Josh Webber. Tonight on radar radio, Liz olds, we'll be talking with New York times bestselling author and peeled surprise finalists, S C Gwynne about his latest historical work hymns of the Republic. The story of the final year of the American civil war, the fourth and final year of the civil war offers one of the most compelling narratives. And one history is a great turning points. Gwen breathes new life, and the Epic battle between Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S grant. And I was old
Speaker 0 00:02:26 Part of the hour. We will be playing a lead legacy interview from one of our episodes in the past, all this and more so stay tuned to right on radio. Sam, are you there? Okay, great. So why don't you start with the reading from the book? Okay. We'll do, do you want me to, do you want me to introduce it in some way or how do you want to go into it? You can, you can give us a little lead in so we know what, uh, where you're at.
Speaker 2 00:03:04 Okay. I'm just, it's going to be a quick lead in because the thing speaks for itself, I think.
Speaker 0 00:03:08 Okay, great.
Speaker 2 00:03:16 I'm going to read from the first chapter in my book, hymns of the Republic, I try to open here at one of the most pivotal moments in American history. That's not an overstatement we're in the, in the, uh, early spring of 1864. And the world is about to change, uh, in a, in a very major way. Chapter one, the end begins Washington DC had never in its brief and undistinguished history known as social season like this one, the winter of 1863, 1864 had been bitterly cold, but it's frozen rains and swirling snows and dampens no spirits instead of feeling almost palpable optimism hung in the air. A swelling sense that after three years of brutal war and humiliating to seats at the hands of rebel armies, God was perhaps in his heaven. After all the inexplicably lethal. Robert E. Lee had finally been beaten at Gettysburg Vicksburg had fallen completing the union conquest of the Mississippi river.
Speaker 2 00:04:22 A large rebel army had been chased from Chattanooga. Something like hope, or maybe just its shadow. And finally loomed into view. The season had begun as always with the new year's reception at the executive mansion, hosted by the LinkedIns. And then it launched itself into a frenzy whose outward manifestation was the city's newest obsession. Dancing, Washingtonians were crazy about it. They were seeing spinning through quadrilles and waltzes and pulses at the great us patent office ball, the enlistment fun ball and monster hops Willard's hotel and the national and these affairs. Moreover, everyone dance, no board Squires or sad. I spinsters lingered in the shadow of cut glass and Gaslight. No one could sit still and together all improvised a wildly moving tapestry of color. Ladies in lace silk and crinolines in Crimson velvet and purple Mar their cascading curls flecked with roses and lilies, their bell-shaped forms world by men in black swallowtails and colored Corvettes.
Speaker 2 00:05:31 The great public parties were merely the most visible part of the social scene that winter had seen an explosion of private parties too. And limits were pushed here to budgets, broken meals, set forth and quail Partridge lobster Terrapinn acreage is of confections. What was most interesting about these evenings? So our was less they're showy proceedings. Then the profoundly threatened world in which took place, she was less a war like a world in a child's snow globe is small glittering space enclosed by an impenetrable barrier for in the winter of 1863, 1864. Washington was the most heavily descended city on earth beyond its houses and public buildings stood 37 miles of elaborate trenches and fortifications that included 60 separate forks manned by 50,000 soldiers along this armored front bristled, some 900 cannons, many of large caliber enough to blast entire armies from the face of the earth.
Speaker 2 00:06:37 There was something distinctly medieval about the fear that drove such engineering. The danger was quite real since the civil war had begun. Washington had been threatened three times by large armies under Robert Haley's command. After the union defeated. The second battle of bull run in August, 1862, a rebel force under Lee Lieutenant Stonewall Jackson had come within 20 miles of the Capitol while driving the entire 60,000 man union army back inside of certifications where the blue coats coward and lick their wounds. And thanks Kevin for all those earthworks and cannons a year and a half later, the same fundamental truth informed those lively parties without that CODO mini town, they could not have existed. Washington's elaborate. Social scene was a brocaded illusion. What the capital's Denison desperately wanted the place to be, not what it actually was.
Speaker 3 00:07:38 Okay. That's Sam Gwynne reading from hymns of the Republic, a book about the last year of the civil war. Um, before we get into the book, I'm curious, uh, when you got interested in the civil war and what exactly was so fascinating to you about it?
Speaker 2 00:07:59 I think I got interested, um, for the first time where I'm pretty sure I did, um, by reading an author, that was the offer that I think turned many, many millions of Americans, literally millions onto the civil war and his name was Bruce Catton, uh, his story in kind of, of the mid century. Um, he w he introduced to the civil war, I think was a, kind of a, of a lyricism of a brilliant type of writing. There had been a little of that in other places, but not very much in his, so the book that really just did it for me, I guess, was, uh, stillness set up automatic. So it's when the tulip, which was a pillow surprise in 1954. And not that I, I was only one, but that was the one that somehow I got a hold of, I guess, as a young adult.
Speaker 2 00:08:47 And I thought, or as probably probably in my late teens, early twenties, it just, it made war seem, uh, accurately like, like it was the most interesting thing in American history, the most consequential thing, you know, the event or series of events that had ever happened. And I still think that there is nothing, there is nothing like the civil war. There is simply nothing like it, it is the most interesting story in American history. It's the most definitive story. It's the most electric illustrative of who we are. Its complexity is mind boggling and can get you down and let it. Um, but yeah, I, that was the beginning of it. And really just, uh, many years of just kind of, you know, being an amateur reader, like most people about the civil war. And then one day I got serious about it and decided to write a biography of Stonewall Jackson.
Speaker 3 00:09:45 Um, I think I know the answer to this question, but well, uh, to kind of set the question up your, the book is kind of a series of vignettes about different personalities. Not totally, I mean, there's other stuff in it, but there is that, you know, Lee and grant and Lincoln and, um, uh, but I'm curious for our listeners, you start the book writing about Nathan Bedford, a tourist, and, um, he's not the most famous personality, a civil war. He is very important, uh, to people who, uh, studied the civil war. And I'm wondering if you could tell our listeners why you started with him.
Speaker 2 00:10:25 Yeah, here's the way I start the book. I want to start. The book was essentially the way I am, but what I read was the beginning of the book. So we're looking at Washington, it's this it's this social scene grant is coming to get his commission as, as a three-star general. And the things are about to happen. You know, the great fight between Lee and grant is about tapping. And I immediately cut to, as you pointed out to chapter two is a story is about the worst massacre of the war, the greatest sort of war crime of the war, if you will. And it takes place at a place called Fort pillow Tennessee, about a month after grant arrives in Washington in the spring of 1864. And it is essentially a massacre of black union soldiers by Confederate soldiers who were enraged for any number of reasons, but they were under the command of Nathan Bedford, Forrest.
Speaker 2 00:11:12 Um, this became the most, the war's most lore at atrocity. It was the, it was the one like me lie in this country, you know, mean we've all heard about that one. I mean, there were plenty of other atrocities that happened in the Vietnam war, but we can all name the lie. Port pillow was the one people could name people in the North, could know people in the North end South could names. Uh, and so to me, it just seemed like you would go like that. This was my point of that chapter was that this is now what the war is about. It, isn't what people thought the war was about at the beginning of the war. It isn't about an, it's no longer about an attempt to stitch the union back together or repair the, you know, the, the scars or the, you know, or somehow, and the attempt to succeed or whatever it may have been.
Speaker 2 00:12:00 It's now a war of black liberation and Lincoln has made it that way. And the emblem, there's no bigger emblem of that than what happened at Fort pillow. So, uh, forest enters this as the commander of the Confederate troops that overrun this union Ford and then sort of kill everybody. Um, and, uh, so that's why it isn't so much Forrest himself. Uh, Forrest is one of the, uh, arguably most brilliant commanders of the war. I mean, Sherman said he was flat the most brilliant commander of the war. He's really something, he's an amazing guy. One of the biggest slave traders in the South before the war. Um, anyway, it was less in some ways because of forest than it was because of what happened. Um, but yeah, he is one of the most compelling figures with the war.
Speaker 3 00:12:49 What about you that affected black soldiers a great deal. Another one that's sort of another battle or action or whatever that, uh, affected black soldiers in a completely different way, was the crater and Petersburg. Uh, can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:13:09 Yeah. This is <inaudible>. This is, this is one of the, kind of the craziest things that happened during the war was this attempt. Um, the union had li sorry, the union under grants had pursued Lee's army all the way, kind of to the Gates of Richmond and Petersburg, but they stalled there with Confederate sort of dug themselves in, into these trenches that were essentially unassailable by the technology of the time. And so the Confederates are barricaded in there and the union union soldiers come up with this scheme that they're going to tunnel use miners from Pennsylvania and elsewhere, sort of Cornish miners to tunnel underneath the Confederate trenches and put an enormous amount of dynamite in there and blow everything to smithereens, and then pour through the gap. Uh, this was, um, I guess this was in July of 1864. And, uh, it's, it sounds so kind of like a crazy idea, but it's so crazy.
Speaker 2 00:14:04 It just might work. And they, the guys tunnel under there sure enough. And they put these giant charges in there and it's actually a great moment when it, you know, and then they light the fuse and they wait to see and, and nothing happens. And, and then these two guys were sent back in to see what had gone wrong. And I always, I always thought, what would it be like to have been those guys going back in to see whether it was going to go off or not? So they get back in there. Um, anyway, they re they, they reset the fuse, it goes off, it, it indeed blows. It's massive. It's just, you know, these feat bodies going hundreds of feet in the air. I mean, it's just complete destruction. And, uh, uh, it was, uh, it turns out, uh, union black and may remember these union black, many of these soldiers had not been in the army very long.
Speaker 2 00:14:55 60% of the ones who were, were, were people who had just been slaves a few months ago. These are people who cross through the lines. You know, Lincoln said enlist these people in the army and they were enlisted and they were trained and they were fighting and they suddenly, you know, it was an entirely different world for these people. And, uh, one of the groups that came pouring into that gap and then got stuck in just horrible ways. They got people got trapped inside the crater, which was too deep for them to get out of and they got shot and they got it. It was just one of those. It turned out to be yet another massacre of black soldier solo. This one was, uh, they were mixed in with white soldiers, um, at the time. Um, but it was just another, I mean, if you, there were also battles where black soldiers fought Fort Wagner and incredibly valiantly and, uh, you know, medal of honor winners.
Speaker 2 00:15:45 Some, they were quite like white soldiers, as it turns out they were, they were, there were really good brave ones and they were really bad drunk ones and everything in between that the lesson was, well, they're just like white soldiers actually, um, which was a total revelation to everybody North and South. Um, uh, but in this case, they were just like white soldiers. They got slaughtered in the crater, like everybody else, one of the great little, it's one of the great little moments of the civil war. Um, that's partly because of its, uh, uh, just how kind of hallucinatory the whole idea that you're going to blow your way through the line, but also because of the, you know, the, the extreme slaughter that went on
Speaker 3 00:16:31 Talk, give us a whole picture of, from, uh, this is a little bit, Oh, I guess the Petersburg was happening when this happened, but give us a whole picture of the, uh, uh, the story from the wilderness down to Petersburg and through called Harbor and all that. Uh, tell us a little bit and why was grant called the butcher?
Speaker 2 00:16:57 Okay. Uh, with ask good questions. Uh, so let's see. So what happens is, and in the spring of 1864, finally, we're, we're going to have this, what everybody thought was going to be the definitive fight and you have the great American unconquerable general from the West grant coming East to take charge of the union army for the first time. And he's going to fight Lee, the great genius of the South of the head of the Confederate army. Um, and the, uh, so this is what, so, so this is what, when we talk about the battles of say wilderness, uh, Spotsylvania cold Harbor, North Atlanta, so forth down on down to Petersburg, we're talking about called the Overland campaign Lee and grant fight. And the North believes this is going to be it. Finally, we've got somebody we've got a general who wins. And one of the reasons he wins is because he's not afraid to sacrifice men as other union generals.
Speaker 2 00:18:05 Like George McClellan had been very afraid to sacrifice men. Grant doesn't mind sending thousands and thousands of people to their deaths. He doesn't mind sending thousands and thousands of people to their deaths, even if it's only to pin a corner of, of Lee's line and re and not allow Lee to move soldiers elsewhere, even if it's only purely a tactical thing like that, doesn't mind sacrificing them. This is why he's called the butcher. He was happy to lose men, nobody, I'm sorry, happy that that's uncharacteristic. He was content to do it in the, in the, um, in the service of a, of a larger idea. Anyway, the great thing in a lot of ways that, you know, the civil Wars is maddeningly complex thing. It's hard to get to simple truths ever, even for a moment, political truths, you know, military truth, social truths, you know, racial, it's hard to find everything so complicated and convoluted and nuanced, but actually in that spring, when, when, when Lee and grant are going to set against each other in the battle of the wilderness, which is sort of in central Virginia there, um, there's incredible clarity about why they're fighting and what the stakes are.
Speaker 2 00:19:20 And those stakes are the, the November election and the stakes are, you know, if grant wins, the idea is that Lincoln is going to win that election. And if Lee wins, Lincoln is going to lose that election. And pretty much everybody thinks that, and as the summer progresses, people think it even more as the spring and summer progressed, people think that even more, it's an incredible clarity. If we get rid of this man from the white house, the war is going to stop. Whoever beats him in that election is going to have made some kind of a deal where there's going to be some kind of a negotiated peace one way or the other. Um, and if he wins, then he is going to bring the full force of the, of Northern resources, uh, to bear in the South. And he is not going to stop the war and the South cannot win that war. And so this is where we are. So we get, we, if, if grant wins, it's sort of over for the South Lee wins is going to be a negotiated peace possibly, possibly between two separate nations. Possibly there will be a reintegration into the same nation with certain ground rules. Nobody knows exactly what it's going to be, but it's like this great, simple, clear truth for change. That's what everything is all about. That's why we're fighting
Speaker 4 00:20:38 Now. Lincoln didn't think he was going to win either. He wrote that note to the, about the, how he didn't think he was going to win and gave it to the cabinet and all that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:20:53 If you, if you go to, uh, August of 1864, now this is so the last war, the war ends that, you know, at the Maddix in April, 1865. So we're, we're, that's about where we are in the war. So you go August of 1864, no one in the North. I mean, believes that Lincoln is going to win that election Lincoln included, but his friends don't think he is certainly the Democrats are convinced. He is. And he's being, there's an insurgent wing of his own Republican party that is going against him moving against him in a big way. Um, people think he's mismanaged the war, which to some extent is a fair accusation. Um, that he's been there. People who were intensely critical of him for his heavy handedness, for everything from the draft to the suspension of habeas Corpus and civil liberties in the North, um, and, and sort of butchery of men and blood and draining the national treasury.
Speaker 2 00:21:45 And it just went on and on and on. And then he had, but above all, he had mismanaged the war. He was a man who couldn't win it. And therefore it was going to go on forever. And so, so August is a great month. It's it's, it's when he writes that note, he doesn't think he's gonna win. Uh, but he doesn't, it's not a question, but he knows he's going to lose at this point. And, um, and there's this great moment where the Democrats gather at the end of and Lincoln was a Republican, right? So the Democrats gathered to nominate the George McClellan in late August of 1864. And they are in Chicago and there's a hundred thousand people in the streets. They're just rocking it. They're drunk. They're having a great time. They know it's over. They know they pretty much are gonna win.
Speaker 2 00:22:30 And there's no one, no newspaper editor in the North. Who of any repute thinks otherwise? No, none of Lincoln's friends, friends think otherwise Lincoln doesn't think otherwise, and everybody in this house is convinced of it. And, and, and so they had this convention and they're still nursing their hangovers. When this one single event happens. It's the single most definitive event of the civil war. And it changes everything. Literally, they're still there. We're waking up going, Oh, we've had a great time. We're going to win. We're going to beat Lincoln, whatever. And the news that flashes up on the wire, I'm only exaggerating slightly. There it's a matter of days, um, between the news flashes North of Atlanta gone, Sherman has taken Atlanta, which just proves everything. Everybody just said about how Lincoln was mismanaging the word, the great prize of the South that's that just fell it's the unions.
Speaker 2 00:23:27 And without that, Blinken probably does lose, uh, without the fall of Atlanta or the equivalent. Um, and it changes the world and interesting that it was sort of conquered if you will, by pretty much inferior general, uh, interior as a, as a battle fighter general brilliant in many other ways. But, uh, uh, yeah, it was just great kind of great moment. The, uh, and, and as you say, what I, what I do in the book is I try to tie, um, we're going through the last year of the war, so we're going straight through it. You're pretty much. And I try to tie, I try to tie, um, events to people to make it interesting, to read, you know, so in this case, my, my guy that I'm writing about is salmon P chase. Who's the secretary of treasury Lincoln's guy. Lincoln's loyal extensively, but not in fact, he leads this opposition. That's charged against Lincoln to try to get rid of Lincoln from within his own party. And so he becomes kind of the poster boy of that, that movement to get rid of Lincoln, uh, which of course fails miserably. And then Atlanta takes care of the rest of it,
Speaker 3 00:24:37 You know, um, just to let you know, we're kind of coming close to running out of time, and I could talk to you all night long, cause I love talking about the civil war, but I think maybe I'll end with the, the ending, uh, in your mind of the book, which is you talk a lot about Claire Barton is very interesting stuff. I didn't know. Could you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 2 00:25:00 Yeah. Good. Clara Barton is, uh, so again, trying to, um, as a, as a writer of narrative history, I try to find interesting people to hang things off of, uh, you know, tell you the story of, you know, an event, uh, or a sequence of events through the eyes of the person. So Clara Barton is just this great American hero. Um, there aren't that many women out in the war, right? Probably cause women, there were women fighting the war, but they were disguised as men. And, uh, there weren't women in the armies. And so in the, in the war per se, um, you don't find women, you don't find many of them anyway. Uh, and, uh, she's just a brilliant one. Um, she reinvents battlefield nursing. I mean, she goes out there all at the beginning. She goes out there all by herself and there's a moment where she goes, where, you know, she, she initially starts out, she would just go raise money, raise money for, uh, Massachusetts regiments and, you know, deliver supplies to them and this morphs into delivering medical supplies.
Speaker 2 00:25:59 And then that morphs into like personally going out to the battlefields and bringing them to, um, to soldiers who didn't have any medical care or, or in field hospitals that had run out of care or equipment. Yeah. At one point she ends up she's off. She goes off all by herself, not by herself because she has to have a man with her because of the time. But she she's out in a, in a carriage stuff with medical supplies, you know, finding her way somehow behind the lines at the battle of Antietam and ending up in the cornfield, which is still the single bloodiest fight in a single bloodiest day in American history of the two generals, Joseph hooker and Stonewall Jackson fought it out for a few hours in the morning. And she ends up there in the hospital, which is literally on the edge of the battlefield with bullets whizzing through it, they've run out of all supplies.
Speaker 2 00:26:50 Uh, they ended up calling her the, uh, about the battlefield angel because there she somehow arrived in her carriage or, or strum cart. They're full of stuff, you know, delivers the bandages and everything else at nighttime, they can operate because she's brought lantern. She's, she's cutting bullets out of people. She's sitting there with literally bullets tearing holes in her dress, just, uh, just a remarkable woman. Anyway, I, uh, she also, at the end of the war, she ends up kind of when, when, when she's no longer needed on the battlefield, per se, she ends up starting a movement to try to find out what happened to all these unaccounted for union soldiers. Where did they go? Where did they die? Where they are, they in prison camp somewhere. And she begins to kind of reminds you a little bit of a pow effort, same in the Vietnam war, but she goes out there initially again, single-handedly and, uh, one of the things that she does is she figures out what happened to all of the union soldiers who went to the worst of the Confederate prison camps at Andersonville. And so it kind of ends with Andersonville, this kind of, uh, with one how horrifying it was. And then two, how, how she managed to at least document set up an official graveyard, say who died there and give resolution and closure to, to the relatives. Anyway, that's, she's a great character. And it was a great way. It was a great way for me to talk about the medical side of the war, and also here at the end. Do you know what happened to everybody and what do people do about it?
Speaker 5 00:28:28 Boy, we have been talking to S C Sam Gwynne, author of hymns of the Republic. The story of the final year of the American civil war, uh, fath is a great book. I highly recommend it if you're interested in the civil war or if you're not, it's really a fascinating, tell us a lot of stories. Uh, thank you, Sam, for, uh, being on right on radio. We have enjoyed talking to you and appreciate your existence on the planet.
Speaker 2 00:28:56 Well, thank you. I've enjoyed talking to you.
Speaker 5 00:28:58 Great. Uh, and now this, I grow old. We'll go away on the train as far away as we can. We'll look out through the windows at fells and tones and lakes and talk to people from foreign lands. We'll be together all the time and forever be on our way. She gets through three books a week, often four or five. She wishes she could read all the time. Sitting in bed with a duvet, pulled up with coffee, lots of cigarettes and a warm night dress on. She could have done without the TV too. I never watch it. She tells herself that UNE would have minded. She gives a wide birth to an old woman waddling along, pulling a gray trolley behind her on the icy road. It's dark. There's no banked up at the roadsides, blocking out the light Viveka thing starts.
Speaker 6 00:30:07 I do that.
Speaker 5 00:30:08 It's dark. There's no banked up at the roadsides, blocking out the light. We bet thinks to herself. Then she realizes she's forgotten to turn the headlights on. And that's driven nearly all the way home in an unlikely car. She turns them on you and tries not to blink. It's hard for him not to it's the muscles around the eyes that go into spasm. He kneels on it on his bed and peers through the window. Everything is still he's waiting for VBAC to come home. He tries to keep his eyes open and calm, fixed on the same spot. Outside the window. There must be at least a meter of snow under the snow live, the mice. They have pathways and tunnels. They visit each other in imagines. Maybe they bring each other food. The sound of the car. When he's waiting, he can never quite recall it.
Speaker 5 00:31:04 I forgotten he tells himself, but then it comes back to him often in palaces between the waiting, after he stopped thinking about it. And then she comes and he recognizes the sound in an instant. He hears it with his tummy. It's my tummy. That remembers the sound, not me. He thinks to himself and no sooner has he heard the car. Then he sees it too. From the corner of the window, the blue car coming around the band, behind the banks of snow. And she turns in at the house and drives up the little slope to the front door. The engine is loud. Its sound fills the room and then she switches, switches it off. He hears her slam the car door shut before the front door opens and he counts the seconds until it closes again. The same sounds every day.
Speaker 6 00:32:01 Wonderful. Can you read us a little bit now? Norwegian? Just that first paragraph. Thank you very much. I will do that with pleasure
Speaker 5 00:32:11 And they'll be gone. <inaudible> so long. The will go down. <inaudible> it's not <inaudible> <inaudible> Oh, they coming from the <inaudible> <inaudible> <inaudible> <inaudible> <inaudible> <inaudible> when the <inaudible> for you.
Speaker 6 00:32:41 Very good. You've been listening there to Hannah. Is it, is it pronounced Vivek? Yes. Yep. And she's reading from, uh, her translated novella. That's just come out in the us from, uh, archipelago books and it's called love and how's that pronounced in Norwegian, Charlotte. Beautiful, beautiful Charlotte. Not as a much better word than loving them. So welcome to ride and radio. Hannah. Thank you. So, um, she's born in, uh, Northern Norway where the story takes place and moved to Oslo at age 16, published her first novel cut in 1994 and has since established herself as one of the most admired and prominent writers in contemporary noise and fiction. Um, love has been considered her breakthrough novel, um, recognized in 2006 by the newspaper Doug Ladette, uh, as one of the 25 best novels in the last 25 years, uh, Hannah has written a number of acclaimed novels and has been translated into more than 16 languages. My goodness she's been awarded a host of literary prizes, including the, the <inaudible> prize presented annually for Swedish and Norwegian fiction by the Swedish Academy. Welcome to ride and radio for the first time Hannah list or static or stubby. Thank you, Scott, if you on radio, you can't see this with this cop that strike through the Oh, which isn't a sound. Yeah. Well, thanks for reading that Norwegian. It was beautiful to hear that I expect it's easier to read in Norwegian, right.
Speaker 5 00:34:21 It's a lot easier. And also, because also, because I know so well how it sounds in a region and then I get, I get a little, it's like I lose the texts a little bit when it's translated because it's wow. This is not how it really is and they can't hear it then it's kind of all that kind of distress, but also, but it's also a big joy, I mean, to be translated and
Speaker 6 00:34:44 Smooth, and I was watching your mouth as you were reading completely different. So interesting. So Martin eight can, um, uh, translated this for you. And, uh, is there anything quick to tell us about him? I know he's, uh, archipelago use him, don't they?
Speaker 5 00:35:01 Uh, translator and, uh, and I think he's done a beautiful job.
Speaker 6 00:35:06 Good job. Yeah. The beautiful style in the book. I just, I loved reading. It was very, very easy to read, absolute, complete, you know, a real page Turner in that sense. So, um, what, uh, what I'd like to do, um, is just ask you a little bit about the, I suppose, the, um, literary elements in this, you know, this whole book starts off very quickly with, um, is it Vivica Rebecca? Yes.
Speaker 6 00:35:38 Becca and her son it'd be urine urine, and it looks like John's to English readers, but it's yawn. And I probably, we probably would call him, John use a close third person and a present tense all the way through the book. That's very consistent. And the book, um, jumps between the two points of view all the way through. So it's, it's wrapping around the stories wrapping around these two people's experience, a mother and her son. Um, and of course you get that label of a Juul character point of view straightaway, the book, which I thought was very effective. And then when I got that line, which you actually read out loud, loud under the snow lift of the mice, I know I'm in a literary novel because you know, it's hammering away in banging away with subtext strikes. Whoa. You know, I'm, I'm living with the mice now and the whole, uh, the whole story is taking place in the S in Northern Norway. And it's, there's lots of snow. So one of my first questions to you. So I think our listeners would be interesting most of our listeners or readers or aspiring readers. Um, how aware are you when you draft, and I know this was long time ago when you wrote the first draft of it, but how aware were you or are you when you write new books of the literary components of what you're doing,
Speaker 5 00:37:10 Um, what do you mean by the literary components?
Speaker 6 00:37:13 This is, this book is just loaded with subtext and I'm always leery of, of claiming too much for that because some writers are not really aware of the subjects that they're putting in and literary writers as well. And, you know, they just, right.
Speaker 5 00:37:30 Yes, I did. I think, eye to eye really. Right. And I think that, I think that that is kind of, uh, the joy of it is to feel, and to kind of do, to trust that, to go into this universe and to know that if, and to kind of just allow, allow the text to come as it is. And, and, and, and to know that if it interests me, uh, there must be more in it, even though I can't really, uh, I can't, and I don't really even want to, uh, be totally aware of it. I just have to trust it and, and, and like, follow, follow this there's the investigation that the novel is. Um, and, uh, when you said that, when with that line with the mice Anders, it's not, I mean, to me, it was just like very practical. It's a boy. And he just has a thought, I mean, I, I would not think that that would be, you know, like,
Speaker 6 00:38:32 Yeah, it's so fascinating because you know, the old, the old graduate student in me was always looking for those kinds of things, but there, again, being a graduate student and working on that, when I write, I also, uh, in my last novel house, large sizes, which is somewhat like this in certain ways, um, well, my song, uh, but, uh, you know, I, I recognized those kinds of lines after the fact, and then got to the end of the book, and then as I'm coming back, then I start polishing them and moving them around so that they display more. So, so I'm always, and some authors have come in here. So I'm complete, totally aware of what I was doing. One of them a few years ago, it was, um, uh, Swedish writer that you might be familiar with, the Michael Nimi music, the Tuka absolutely fabulous. But then he sat here and we had the same sort of conversation. And, um, there's a, if you remember the book, there's a, a character goes into a, a stove and stays in there for generations.
Speaker 6 00:39:41 Yeah. It's difficult. And I just said, well, what, you know, what are you doing with that? And he said, like you did, I just wrote it. And it felt right. But there again, I recognize that that was puberty, you know, somebody's coming out with puberty and let's just, it was, it was lovely. Uh, so, you know, when I saw that, and then later on in the story, you know, we have, um, you know, this big, tall blonde, attractive Carney, and everybody's smoking like crazy. And then there's the, the woman with the white wig, and I'm just getting any ni ni I'm getting no Norse mythology. I'm getting the white goddess. All of this is coming through so well done. You, you, you, you knocked me off my feet with that.
Speaker 5 00:40:22 And it's so interesting because yes, because I, it, I wrote it, I was so young when I wrote it and I really wrote it from, to me, it's just very, very, very concrete. Yeah.
Speaker 6 00:40:34 Yeah. Well, the language certainly sets it up as concrete is a very minimalistic, uh, style for it. Um, where does that come from? Is that something that was just a feature of your age at the time, or is that you still write that way and will you still write the brain in the future?
Speaker 5 00:40:52 I think, no, I've, this is my third novel of 13. So I've written 10 novels after, and my language has, has changed, but I think that my language always, always reflects, uh, my current, uh, kind of existential connection to the world because that's where language that's, that's the place that the language opens, I think. And, and, um, but for this novel, it was really a very, I did not feel that I had much language at hand. It really felt constrained, uh, to, to live, uh, and also the language that was used possible to use, because I was, I really had this period, uh, I wrote this book because, because, uh, I really don't know. I can't say, but because, because I mean, lots of reasons, I guess, but, but, but I, what I really remember is that I had just had a baby, my daughter, she was newborn and I held her and I, uh, I had this nagging question.
Speaker 5 00:42:03 How can I ever be sure, how can I ever know that she knows that I love her because I can say it and say it and say it, but I can never be sure that she really kind of, you know, that she just feels it and knows it. And because it's that with language that someone can come to you and say, Oh, you know, I love you. And you know, it's true. It's filled, it contains what it says, but then another person that may be also the same person they come and say, Oh, but you know, I love you. And you know what, that's just piss. I mean, it's empty. You don't, you don't love me, but the words are exactly the same. And when, when does language contain what it holds? So I was really, I wanted to write a novel that, uh, that was really kind of that that showed, or kind of a novel that kind of investigated what, what can hold in, what is there to hold. And I think that this is a rare, very scary novel. Yeah.
Speaker 6 00:43:06 Well, it's, it's, it's partly about, uh, kind of not love and an unloved. Yeah. And I think that's the scary thing, isn't it? Yeah. I think love loves the difficult thing in reality, because you know, sometimes there's many days you don't feel it. You say you do, but you don't, and it's, it's, you know, there's the feeling get in your chest, which we all identify as love, but then love is also pretty existential. And in this story, I was wondering, um, and let me get into this in a second, just a station ID that you're listening to him, ground leases, speaking with Hannah about her new book, uh, love just translated and published by archipelago books here in the United States. Um, the character, the mother in this story is not a mother that had a lot of an American mothers are going to identify with.
Speaker 6 00:43:55 She leaves her boy. Who's about to turn nine. She leaves him alone in the apartment that newly moved into and goes out. It goes to the Fenton and Nita Connie who she's very attracted to in the way they go. And they have a night out and the little boy goes out on his own. And as we said earlier, the story kind of interweaves between their experiences in one has to pay very close attention, you know, to stay with it. Um, and one of my questions was about the translation that, I mean, in, in Norwegian, is it easier to follow than it is in English? I don't know. I, I had to really concentrate.
Speaker 5 00:44:32 Yes. You really have to concentrate to, Oh, now we're suddenly with you women then,
Speaker 6 00:44:37 Which was a really good technique because I was forced to, I couldn't read, I could not read fast. I really liked that. I had to really concentrate in this world right now, you know, you're zoomed through something and you think you can get it, but you forced me to not do that. And I'm really busy. So, um, you know, to, to be forced into reading slowly and to, to pay attention to the lines, it was very useful. Um, but at the same time, extremely emotive emotional, or in a way emotional less, because I did not like that mother, um, at all, but I loved the little boy and identified with him greatly.
Speaker 5 00:45:14 Um, I think that is so interesting when I wrote it. I really identified with a boy too. Yeah. I was very young and I think that having, uh, having a child, uh, also it, it does not only, I thought that having a child would kind of really make me only focused about her. I mean, but, but the new child, but having a child really sent me back to my own childhood. And, uh, and in a way I will say that I kind of wrote this book for me and my brothers. So I kind of put us together into you. Uh, and, and, um, and, uh, uh, and I identified so much with this kind of, of not of, of not having your own world mirrored by the adults. And then it becomes almost non-existent, you know, you and has this, uh, no, I can kind of verbalize all this. I couldn't then I just kind of wrote the novel, but, but you, and has this, uh, he has this feeling of disappearing often that it kind of disappears and that is not grounded on, on, on the earth. He has this, he also has this, this poster in his room of the planets and the universe. And he's kind of Fe really is not kind of really, uh, there. Uh, and yet he is very concrete there. I mean, he is very present also like a child. Yeah.
Speaker 6 00:46:42 It's present in both. I mean, I really did identify with that because I wouldn't say that I had a mother like this, but she didn't have the best mother in the world. And, uh, you know, it's quite interesting right now with, um, you know, contemporary things happening. Um, you know, the me too movement, which I, 100% support. And yet at the same time, you know, you can't always believe women, you can't, and not all within an ice,
Speaker 5 00:47:08 Always believe,
Speaker 6 00:47:10 Believe in you, even yourself. And two people will tell the same know, same event, a different story. And it, it, there are kind of naivety is out there in the world right now, which are frustrating, especially for us on the other people like me on the left. Um, and this was a story that really kind of goes after in a way, the, the sort of romanticism of a one's thinking,
Speaker 5 00:47:33 Yes, now you're talking about Viveka the mother. And, but what I was going to say, I identified when I wrote it really so much with you and I was, I was angry with the LiveCA. I mean, she, she, she does not, I mean, she should have gone and checked if he was in bed, at least, uh, before she went out, uh, uh, uh,
Speaker 6 00:47:56 You did a fabulous job all the way through this, of keeping the lines together. Cause he's always thinking of her and she never wants, thinks of him.
Speaker 5 00:48:03 Yeah. And this is the evening before his birthday. So he's going to be nine the day after. But what I was going to say, and I think is interesting is that now so many years later, it's easier for me to really, to see that I can really understand also Viveka after having lived, uh, these years and, uh, and felt my own. I mean, they both long for love. She has this hunger for love from a man and he has a hunger for love from his mother and they, these hungers don't meet. And, and, uh, and I think if you have that whole inside yourself, then as an adult, I think to kind of really work with that hole, isn't that kind of, one of the really big work we have to do to be able to be parents both to our real kids, but also to our inner kids.
Speaker 5 00:48:59 So to the kids we were, who are still in us and craving inside. But, but, but, but what I really kind of would say is that, that now I can really, I and I, when I wrote it, it was important for me that it is possible to identify with Viveca. Uh, because if not, I mean, she's not a social outcast. I mean, she, she has a good job. She works as a cultural, uh, consultant in the municipality and, and she, she feeds John and she knows in her head, I mean, intellectually, she knows what the mother should do. And she feeds him. He there's nothing in that kind of, you know, there is nothing from the outside that you would see what was lacking, but it's empty this and that kind of, to me, that is really the big fear and fear underlying that's empty, where it's empty. It's nothing where th where it should be.
Speaker 6 00:50:00 And that's where the minimalistic style is so useful that you choose, because, you know, you, you go straight into her direct thought process and she's, she's trying to sort of manipulate this man's feelings, thinking that he's watching her, that he's paying attention. And of course, men generally don't, and she's got a whole sort of process of, of thought that that kind of almost relies upon him being like her. And he's not.
Speaker 5 00:50:29 Yeah, I don't think she was trying to manipulate his feelings, but, but she is really interpreting everything he does in a very, very, very, very, a rosy way. So it becomes what she needs. Even the smallest thing will be like the three fishes and five breads. I mean, it will be like, Oh, that he really kind of almost is about to propose her.
Speaker 6 00:50:58 He did an extraordinary job of, uh, of staying in contact with her mind. And of course the further it went on, the more frustrating I was getting with her. And then what the, the tension in the book is almost better than any mystery because you know, something's going to happen in her and it keeps getting more and more tense and more dark and the, Oh my goodness. And then you bring in what I thought that I called it the white goddess or the fake white goddess. She has a white wig, and she's one of the carnies and knocks on the window at one point early in the story when, um, the Baker is in there with Tom, and then we sit, then of course she shows up later and I feel like she's going to, uh, do something and sure enough, she gets the boy into her car.
Speaker 6 00:51:42 I won't say anymore, what else happens? Cause it's very good. But, um, you know, that's why I'm, I'm looking at this, this author, who's putting all this together, this little plot into what could be a short story. It's not, there's a novella. And it satisfied me in the same way. The short story does. Hmm. I couldn't quite do it all in one sitting, which is requisite for a short story usually, but, but, uh, it gave me that same satisfaction. So I go away with it whole, like, but with the novel, sometimes you go away with parts of the novel and in your brain and you read it over maybe a week or a few days, or whatever happens to be, but this was, this should be read in one sitting. And, uh, you, you remember it as a whole, as, as one unit. And so that the unification of it was I thought brilliant. Okay.
Speaker 5 00:52:34 Oh, I'm so thank you. That's wonderful. Um, yeah, it's also, I guess also, because I mean, the, it takes place during such a few hours of winter freezing winter evening at night. So it's also, the time is really also limited.
Speaker 6 00:52:52 Did you limit yourself, uh, structurally to a certain amount of hours when you did it? When did you plan any of this or you just sit?
Speaker 5 00:52:59 No, I, I wrote it whenever my little newborn daughter was sleeping. So, uh, no, I, and it was really scary to read and to write for me too. I think also, I didn't realize even then that are out it in present tense, that was long after someone made me aware of it, but also this present tense it's now and now, and now, and something can happen and it's not looking back. I mean, you're not sure because it, it can really happen. And I had this feeling when I wrote it of, of, you know, in, in, in horror movies, the camera, you don't really, you don't know what your, what the next, the camera follows inside the house and the door is going to be open. And what is behind that door? You don't know. And that's, it was like, that's writing the novel because I hadn't planned.
Speaker 5 00:53:48 But of course, when you write a novel, because I think of it as a novel, you say novella, but that doesn't matter. But, but, uh, whenever, and I think that is one of the wonderful things about writing a novel. I don't know if you agree with that, but this kind of taking choices inside the text. And then at a certain point, the choices kind of, they have consequences and they lead to, they, they kind of take over in a way because something is led out and, and, and they, and they carries, uh, they carry the, uh, the holes.
Speaker 6 00:54:22 Oh, that's a, that's a classic prescription has let the characters lead you as an author. And you did that wonderfully real quickly. We're kind of running out of time, but yeah. Um, what's is there anything else coming out soon in translation from you?
Speaker 5 00:54:37 I think, uh, Jill, uh, S uh, in, uh, archipelago book is thinking about giving up one of my latest ones. And, um, I really hope so.
Speaker 6 00:54:50 Well, yes, I will work on that. Just that's still schooling. Wonderful, wonderful friend of literary translated fiction, a New York city archipelago books. And thanks to Jill for putting this out. And thank you for being on writing radio. This is the in-ground Lisa Gambian spoke speaking to Hannah. <inaudible> about her newly translated and released the book love here in the twin cities. Thanks so much for being on writer and radio. Love to have you back Monday. Thank you. And now this.
