Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 <inaudible>
Speaker 1 00:01:03 You are listening to right on radio on KFA 90.3 FM and streaming live on the web. I'm Andy harpoon tonight. I'm right on radio. Dave talks with, while I'm paying the creator of the author of the poetry collection. My name is immigrant, just out this summer, playing as a poet and writer who has authored more than 10 books. And she is also a photographer and performance artist career has been translated into multiple languages and also includes fiction cultural studies. And children's literature ping is the recipient of numerous awards, a professor of English and the founder of the kinship of rivers project.
Speaker 0 00:01:45 And I'm Liz Oles. In the last part of our show, Ian speaks with Peter Guy about his novel Northern most bringing together two remarkable stories of love and survivable Northern most ways into the darkest recesses of the human heart and celebrate the remarkable ability of humans to Endura nearly unimaginable trials. He is the author of the award winning novel, say from the sea, the lighthouse road and wintering all of this and more. So stay tuned to write on radio,
Speaker 1 00:02:16 Take it away. Woo.
Speaker 0 00:02:20 Again, we're delighted to have you. It is a beautiful evening and you have a beautiful backyard the way it looks. I can't wait to start talking about your wonderful book. I chance would you have a reading for us maybe to get started right away was a poem. Yeah, let's do that. Give people a sense for your voice and your words, and it's a great way to kick things off, I think. And then we're going to back up and give a little background. Okay. All right. I will start was the title, not the title poem, the first poem which I use as a kind of forward to open this book, it's called and it's dedicated to all immigrants
Speaker 2 00:03:00 Around the globe and it's titled things. We carry on the sea. We carry tears in our eyes, goodbye father. But by mother, we carry soil in small bags. May home never fade from our heart. We carry names, stories, memories of our village, our civilization. We carry scars from proxy Wars of greed. We carry carnage of mining, chucks, floods, genocides. We carry dust of our families incinerated in mushroom clouds. We carry our islands sinking under the sea. We carry our hands feet, bones, hearts, and best minds to start a new life. We carry diplomas, Madison engineer, nurse education, mass poetry, even if they mean nothing to the other show, we carried railroads, plantations, laundromats, taco trucks, farms, factories, nursing homes, hospitals, schools, temples build on our ancestors backs. We carry old homes along the spine, new dreams in our chests. We carry yesterday today and tomorrow. We're orphans of the Wars forced upon us. We are refugees of the sea drowning in plastic wastes. We came from the same mother in Africa. Where are your children? Sisters and brothers, father, and mother. Our towns carry the same weight as we chant. I have live are more love ping on salon, Sharon pass peace. She wants Amar half numb, Esperanza hope, hope, hope. As we drift from tree to tree, sea to sea,
Speaker 3 00:05:25 That was lovely and a beautiful reading. And I'm going to make a plea here that we have all of our interviews by zoom and have someone in the backyard with those birds tweeting and singing. It was beautiful to hear you read that and hear the birds. Lovely. Lovely. Um, so thank you for that. Thank you. Yeah, go ahead. Uh, so let's, let's give some background to this book. Uh, there's so much going on in this book. It's so much more than a book of poetry. We'll talk about that. Uh, it's it's, it's, it's journalism, it's history, it's memoir, it's all kinds of wonderful things come together in one nice narrative sort of arc. But where did this book come from? Uh, what inspired you to put it together like this?
Speaker 2 00:06:07 Well, I think, I guess the book started the minute I landed in New York and the first day I immigrated to America as a graduate student, I started my master's degree in long Island university. And then I started teaching, uh, for bilingual program at PSU in Chinatown, in New York. And then I started my PhD program, uh, at NYU. So yeah, the life as an immigrant, I thought I had it right. You know, I graduated from the best university in China. I was English major. You know, I was like, well versed in all the poetry and not the best poetry from bell wove all the way to, um, Alan Ginsburg. And, uh, boy, it's just so different from what I imagined and, you know, I, and you know, I also came just challenged that just opened this door to, to, um, to the world, to the West West.
Speaker 2 00:07:26 Right. And I grew up, you know, in China, completely isolated. And, uh, so it's just complete different world to me. And cultural shock. It was, was really immense. And, um, and there was also a lot of, uh, you know, misunderstanding or just, you know, just wherever I went to school. I also worked for several years for a law office and, uh, I helped a lot was immigration. I actually learned how to do, uh, you know, uh, legal work for immigrants and including my own paperwork. Right. And, uh, so yeah, so, so there are a lot of stories, basically this book is, uh, as you said, personal story and historical story, it's a story of immigration from not just myself, not just Chinese, but also immigrants from all over the world. Yeah. And I want, this is a song, basically a story, almost an old to immigration, you know, because I truly believe United States is a nation of immigration and immigration is also the signature of life. Life begins. The moment the cell is born, right? The cell ourselves is the basic units of life. The moment the cell beginning migration begins,
Speaker 3 00:09:06 Right.
Speaker 2 00:09:08 It was out at the moment and exchange, right. And life desk comes right. And if you look at the basic unit, the cell structure, it has two membranes, which function as a wall. But this wall, the two walls actually has to be able to exchange all the time. Right. And, uh, the waste has to go out and the nutrients and the water has to come in right through the wall. Right. And the very different from Trump's border wall. Right. So what does that mean? You know, and right. The signature of life is movement is migration is immigration. And then
Speaker 3 00:09:52 Yeah, beautifully said, so ping the structure of this book, this old sort of hinges on hangs on the story of the Cockle pickers. Uh, tell us what that means. And cause I had to look it up and uh, and then tell us that a sad, sad story. And then how that it carries you through your entire book. You're tired. Um,
Speaker 2 00:10:18 Yeah, I would say it's almost the spine of the book, uh, or the thread that like brings all the stories. All immigration stories is the same story that people, people don't want to move, just pull up their roots, you know, like trees, they don't like to be pulled up and move transport to be transplanted. People don't have a choice. Right. And for whatever reasons, right. For political reasons or silent for seeking a better life or environmental, uh, environmental, uh, the climate change, refugees or political, you know, the war refugees. Right. And they have to move, they have to leave their home. Right. And so the cocoa picker is the story of economical migrants. Right. And so, yeah, and it's a tragic story. And, um, that like, you know, on the Chinese new year, the last year of Chinese, uh, Chinese new year, which Chinese new year has 15 days.
Speaker 2 00:11:27 And during the 15 days, you're not supposed to work. Right. Especially the first day and the last day and the last day is the full moon. And the foreman that day is like the first full month of the first year. Right. You know, it's very, very significant. It's a combination of Valentine's day, Thanksgiving day. And, uh, you know, and so yeah, and, but those Chinese immigrants, they had to go out to make money so that they can pay back the debt right. To their smugglers. And then the tide came in and they have, they couldn't work legally. So they have, the only job for them is to pick Caicos on the very dangerous beach.
Speaker 0 00:12:19 These are like clams. Yeah. Those are the Caicos would like clams. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:12:24 So, so they wending at midnight in the dark. And then the tide came in and they couldn't see where the tape is coming from. They couldn't tell where they're running. A lot of them just ran into the tight and just drummed. And so they pulled out their cell phone the last minute and called home to say goodbye. And they're screaming and crying was just basically broadcast live. Right. And the rescuers couldn't rescue them either because it's just too dangerous. Right. And they couldn't see anything. So, so this was a whole, like a big cost, a big like controversy, you know, the British government wants to claim down on illegal immigration, you know, and smuggling and they blamed them and they're all on the, you know, snake, hats, the smugglers, but the root is really just like, right. The economy wants cheap labor. Right. And, uh, you know, um, so it's, it's both ways. Right. And yeah, so I did then a British filmmaker. Uh, Isaac Julian invited me to, to, um, he hurt me, my me reading a poem about Rockaway, a tragedy in New York, like about 20 years ago. And, uh, and I wrote this long poem and the rather together was Alan Ginsburg when he performed the, how at the poetry project in New York. And
Speaker 0 00:14:13 That must've been something, Oh yeah, it was amazing.
Speaker 2 00:14:18 This is the first time I knew he was going to perform how I wanted to write something that not like to, to be too paled right.
Speaker 0 00:14:34 Against the house. Well,
Speaker 2 00:14:39 So I decided, and also at the same time, this tragedy happened in Rockaway. And, uh, so I decided to visit like about quite a few people died. A lot of people died and, uh, 13 of their bodies, nobody would dare to come up, come out and claim the bodies, their relatives, because they were afraid to be arrested. So those bodies were, our six bodies were like buried in a public cemetery in New Jersey. So I tried to visit their cemetery and I didn't know how to drive at a time. And so I backed a friend who was a Marine, you know, soldier. And, uh, they were like very well trained in navigation. Right. He has a car. So he took me there and we just kept getting lost. And then finally we found a place. And as we were like two minutes away, a storm just came down and just the sky became so dark.
Speaker 2 00:15:49 We had to pull over. Right. And, and the weight, then finally we went there, the San cemetery just closed. So I saw, okay, um, you, the spirits, like you you're telling me something. Right. So I started writing the poem, um, like three days, just no food, no story. And I wrote it and I performed it and, uh, next to an end Gainsbourg, pure literary, enjoy that. And then it was selected for the best American poetry, uh, by Adrian rich. So that was a great honor for me. Yeah. And, um, so then like 10 years later, I haven't read this poem because that poem the song of the golden adventure. Right. It was just so devastating and, you know, just wrenching. But somehow then, um, my friend, um, from Britain, he's a professor, he was teaching at, uh, Pittsburgh university. So he invited me to do a reading there.
Speaker 2 00:17:06 And I, for some reason I chose that poem to read. Right. And, um, then after the reading, this filmmaker, Isaac came up to me, said, I want to, to come to London, to mock and Bay, I'm making a film about those Kako pickers. I said, okay. So just like, it seems like every story is connected. Every event is connected. Right. And, um, so, so I went to Malcolm Bay and, um, and I just decided I need to go to the home land of those Kako pickers. They all came from one village and that village turned out to be Admiral hole. Um, who in the 17th century, who like was sent out to explore the sea was a lot of gifts. And his fleet was like a floating cities. Right. You know, thousands of soldiers and officials and gold and silk and porcelain and gifts. And so basically they visited India like around the show, along the Indian ocean and the Atlantic.
Speaker 2 00:18:28 And they say some of them even reached America. Right. And so it's basically a diplomat diplomat, like friendship, you know, a trip. And he, so, and every time he went out, like about seven via jurors, right. And, and each time he sailed from that village, it's called Chandler. It turned out happiness. And so I think because of that, that village, the people from the village has that addiction of going leaving home and ex and just go out, go or just travel around the globe, you know? And so their village basically was empty. And, but the village was just filled, was mentioned, like build was the money that the villages earned abroad in Europe or in America and around the world. So it is very strange phenomena. And at the same time, it's really just like a history and the presence, the past, which is all connected. Right. And, uh, so yeah, so I wrote, so I decided to write up home for each of the victims there, about 23 people died at the Cockle, uh, a couple pickers. And, uh, I wrote them, took me two years to write it. And, uh, the filmmaker just used every word and made like a film, like was nine screens. So it was a great success.
Speaker 3 00:20:15 Well, congratulations. Yeah. It's tremendous book. I'm speaking with Wong ping. The author of my name is immigrant, which is so much, it's a book of history, journalism, memoir, and in poetry and song, it's an old as ping as described. Um, talk a lot about, you've talked a lot about travel and movement and, uh, there's a line from the poem that you read things. We carry on the sea. And when I did that, and then I heard you read it again, it made me think, um, what, what remains on the sea? What doesn't, um, along with the immigrant, what there's a sense of longing in, in these, in these songs and these poems, what is lost at sea? I know there's a general sort of a broad question
Speaker 2 00:21:01 Lost in the sea. Yeah. Probably the culture. Right. You know, just, I would say everything of their past. Right. And, uh, you know, once they leave the village, they have no idea when they can go back. Right. And some of their homes are lost and just sunk under the sea forever. At the same time, those people are just so resilient and they lost everything yet. They get, they also like the happiest people on those. Right. Even though a, all of them have, I think dirt poor. Right. And, uh, the happiest people are not the people I've met with so many people I've traveled around the world. Right. And my only experience is the happiest people. I'm not the richest people. A lot of times, the happiest people, uh, people who have lost everything, but they persist. They continue to live right. And turn things around, you know? And so, so they, they may have lost the material. They old village, the old home, the old land, but they gained their experiences and gain the memory. And that home, the old home and new home is really lives in the memory, you know? And also in the end, it's in the story and in the poem, you know,
Speaker 3 00:22:35 And speaking of home, are you in st. Paul? You're in Minnesota.
Speaker 2 00:22:39 Yes. I live in st. Paul. I live like very close to the Mississippi river. Yeah. Which I visit. I'm a rollers. I roll 12 kilometers every day.
Speaker 3 00:22:53 Oh my goodness. Yeah. I look for a little bit. Do you roll by yourself or with someone else? Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 2 00:22:59 It's my meditation. My 12 kilometers, some meditation. It's the river and all the life along along it you're rower. Huh?
Speaker 3 00:23:10 I have wrote in the past. Yes. It's been a couple years now, but, uh, it's, it's gorgeous to be down in the river and, uh,
Speaker 2 00:23:18 The MRC Minneapolis, right?
Speaker 3 00:23:20 Correct. Yes, indeed. Why did you stop? Uh, I don't remember. Uh, I don't know. I got, I miss so many classes and so many, uh, shifts or whatever it was that, um, I don't know. I kind of lost track. I almost had to go back and kind of learn it over for me. It was always hard to, uh, get in sync with, you know, five, six, seven other rowers, however many on the boat. And I think it would be better like in, in my own role, but right. Yeah. Well this year, if you join this, you have no choice, but you have to be in the singer. We're all practicing. So it's distance. It's much easier river. No, no, no. I should go back. It's perfect. I know. Yeah. They don't have a choice before in the past today, they won't let you in a single right.
Speaker 3 00:24:12 Because it's too dangerous. You can flip very easily. And now that, but that's the only way to learn. So our producer, Annie, you can see her, she's holding up the one minute sign. Who's back there. Good to see everyone. Um, I sure miss those guys, uh, but I love the zoom chats. It's great to see the authors. Um, we're going to lose you soon. This has been so wonderful. I could keep talking with you, but um, tell us what you're working on next. Is there anything or, uh, yeah, I am working on a book of essays about poetry and language and uh, um, quantum physics. Wow. Human brains. They are all connected. Yes. And he busted mind. Keep me in mind. Let your publicist Send us some information about that. And also working. I finished, uh, another, a new poem, uh, manuscript, um, um, nature, you know, uh, environmental, uh, climate change environment ecosystem. So everything is entangled together so that I send you the, when the new book comes out. Definitely. Definitely the essential one, please. We're going to have you back. Yeah. Thank you. Maybe I'll see you on the Mississippi river. I hope so. I will ping the author of my name is immigrant I'm. Dave. Thank you so much. Thank you everyone. Thank you, Joshua. Okay. Bye. Bye.
Speaker 4 00:25:46 Peter. Are you there? I am. I am. Welcome back. Thank you. Yes. Postponed not canceled. Yes. Upon your request. I'll read a little bit about some snow and ice. Why have we made these seas are dwelling gentlemen, why have we chosen these flows of ice and snow? These temperatures and gales. Why have we ventured so far away from our fellow men? He drew a puff on his pipe. Some of you have come here thinking you might leave your past behind, find respite from your conscience. Have you committed crimes and done misdeeds? Are you punishing yourself? Oh, diner here is restocking his pride. He's making things for his family. Again. What about you in here? He stabbed the tip of his pipe toward Mickelson and Andreas and, and who shopped one, two, three, whatever your reason, whatever your aim. Let me tell you what I learned there in Greenland gentlemen, he walked back to the table and stood above us.
Speaker 4 00:27:01 It was the font I saw in that storm. He bent at the waist. So it was to be closer to us. All that eternal snow. He whispered smoke issuing from his mouth and his nostrils. It was the answer to my lifetime of prayers. He took another puff and turned to Ivan pushups. Have you been paying attention, man? Did you see the packet nor Dallas lended? When was the last time you looked out that porthole, he aimed his pipe over his shoulder at the window and saw a world that wasn't snowing ice. It's where the fattest seals live. Sure. Push off said it's also with the truth will be found. Ivan don't you see it's all there is. Stand up, man. Stand up and have a look. He shook Kush off by the shoulder, guiding him toward the window. Very good demand lamps. So Ivan here might see what I just saw. Mickelson reached up and dim the lamp until the galley was almost as dark as the night outside, who shot went and gaze blankly out the porthole. What do you see as being nearly hissed then turned back to us at the table, close your eyes labs, and think about what I've to seeing. Listen, and listen to him, tell you about it. I see the snow. He said as though making a grave admission, what else do you see the night? You are preaching friends. Fiend set. That is the phone. That is the answer.
Speaker 5 00:28:26 That's fantastic stuff. It's almost like something from Robert Louis Stevenson you got going on.
Speaker 4 00:28:32 Yeah, I, I must say that I wrote that scene and it was one of the most fun, uh, scenes I've ever written as far as my own personal satisfaction is concerned. And I'm a huge fan of Moby Dick and have been since I was in high school and I felt, uh, I felt the influence on just about every page of that scene, but I think it's okay to be influenced.
Speaker 5 00:28:56 Absolutely. So, uh, you are listening to me and Graham Lee square, and I'm speaking with pizza guy about his new book Northern most, which was postponed for a little while. And we've already talked about it back in April, but here it is coming out on the 18th. And, uh, it's absolutely marvelous book, which we'll talk about in a moment, um, for his fourth book. And, um, if you don't know, already pizza guy was born in Minneapolis and now lives here still with his family and his previous novels are safe from the seed, the lighthouse road and wintering, and very pleased to have him back here. So welcome back, Peter.
Speaker 4 00:29:38 Yeah. Thanks. It's so nice to talk to you again. Good. Um,
Speaker 5 00:29:42 So, um, tell our listeners a little bit about that scene, who the writer, who is actually speaking, um, and, uh, and that never snowed a little bit more about what the book is about overall.
Speaker 4 00:29:59 Yeah, so that scene is, is told from the point of view of a character named Oh diner. Who's a fishermen from a little village in the Northern most part of Norway in the late 1890s. And he like many people in that part of the world were quite down on their luck at about that time in history. And in order to make ends meet, he's taken a series of jobs that have landed him off the coast of Spitsbergen on a, on a, on a sealer, a boat that has gone seal hunting, uh, around this Arctic Island. And he's in the employee of this guy named <inaudible>, uh, my goodness, his name is escaping me. Uh, and he, and, um, and, and he's having a sort of, Oh, well, he's, over-matched certainly by his employment mean he's also having a sort of crisis of faith if you will.
Speaker 4 00:30:52 And, and it's about to become an even graver crisis as the, as the story moves on. And he's actually separated from the crew of this, this, the ceiling boat. Um, but in that moment, he's, he's, he's having he's in the galley with the, with the master of this boat. Um, who's a bit of a, uh, of a, uh, a sort of solitary and stoic and larger than life character, as I imagine a lot of those, a lot of those menus to be, um, and, and they're confronted by the, by the, by the emptiness of it all. And, uh, and for Rhode Island, that becomes a sort of a touchstone for the, for what he's about to endure, which is, as I said, uh, he's, he's, he's left behind feared, dead, um, on the Island of Spitsbergen. And so that's, that's a big, that's a big part of his story.
Speaker 4 00:31:43 Um, but just as, just as importantly, I think he, you know, he's, it doesn't spoil the story at all to say, he's rescued you, you would learn that in the, in the opening chapter of the book or the second chapter of the book, I guess. Um, and, and, and as much of his story is revolves around that, that episode in his life. He's also grappling a lot with, uh, with his relationship with his wife who suspected he was dead into finds him all of a sudden alive. And with his daughter, who's gone away to Minnesota, um, uh, a couple years earlier. Uh, they haven't heard from her since, so he's a man, he's a man with a lot on his mind. Um, so that's, that's his part of the story. There's a second part of the story, a character, uh, who is his, um, boy without the family tree in front of me. I can't even remember this anymore. I think he has seven, six or seven times. Great. Um, who is a Minnesotan and who has also sort of as unexpectedly as <inaudible> has found himself in Spitsbergen, she's found herself back in the Norwegian village of her ancestors and she grappling with her own, uh, marriage and relationships. And these two stories connect in ways that I hope are, um, interesting in that, that, um, ended up, uh, illuminating an awful lot for, for Gretta in her own search and quest for meaning.
Speaker 5 00:33:14 And in the little section that you just read to us, we have the form introduced to us, which is the sort of magical element of snow, and that runs all the way through the book. And, uh, very, very interesting, which is kind of why I asked you to,
Speaker 4 00:33:35 You know, I'm so glad that you said that because as I was writing this book, I knew, I knew of course, that, that the season and that the elements would be a part of it. They couldn't, they couldn't not be. Um, and, and, but it wasn't until maybe halfway through it that I realized what a pervasive element of the story it was. And, and from that point on whenever I got tangled up in some thread or some idea that I couldn't quite keep track of, or, or they didn't seem to be making sense, I would lean back into that. And I would just observe some quality of the natural world through the eyes of the characters. And it was always the, the snow and ice that they were seeing. So that scene that I just read was actually one of the ladies, you know, the later scenes, even though it takes place in the middle of the book, it was one of the last scenes that I, that I wrote and I'd come across.
Speaker 4 00:34:30 I, I don't, I did a lot of research on the Arctic and on Arctic explorers. And one of the things that I did was I, I, I kept a sort of glossary for terms that I came across. And one of them was the, this word fun, which is from the old North. And it is, it is, um, as it's described in the encyclopedia Arctic of the eternal snow. And that really, that really is, as soon as I learned that. And, and, and like I said, started leaning back into it. It, it actually, um, it did an enormous amount of work, just holding the book together for me. And I relied on it in a way that I haven't really relied on it on an element like that in the past, as much as I've written about the snow and winter and things.
Speaker 5 00:35:17 Yeah. You've done nothing but that, I mean, it's been huge. I mean, especially in the last one, wintering, uh, you sort of regret not having the concept of fond in that book.
Speaker 4 00:35:29 Well, I guess, you know, in a certain sense, it was there, even if I didn't know it now that I, now that I think about it, because so much of that book, like it, like you say, is also a book that takes place in the, in the dead of winter. And I don't know, you know, I I've been asked the question often enough to, to think about it outside of interviews and, and things like that. And, and for me, the persistence of that season and the persistence of that, of the notion that I articulated through the voice of that ceiling boat captain, there is something that's a part of me, right. I I'm a native Minnesota by birth. I, um, those are the last couple of days have just been lovely weather wise. I spend my whole summer pining away for winter, the way most folks spend winter pining away for summer.
Speaker 4 00:36:15 I feel like it's, um, you know, it's just like a, sort of a part of my DNA that that's, that's the, that's the place where I'm content and where I find meaning and where I'm happy and where I take my recreation and all of those, those sorts of things. And so, of course, um, of course it was there when I was writing wintering. I just, wasn't conscious of it. And, and I suppose that there will be, you know, someday in five or 10 or 20 years when I'm reading Northern most again, for whatever reason, uh, there will be things that I'll discover that I wasn't aware of, um, at the time of writing the book.
Speaker 5 00:36:52 Hm, interesting. I found quite a lot of relation. The other question I was going to ask you is, uh, how does this fourth book relate to the other three, suddenly a lot of crossover with place and characters.
Speaker 4 00:37:04 Yeah. Yeah. And that's, you know, so, I mean, they're obviously very directly related the first, or excuse me, the second and third book in Northern most now all having to do with the same family. Um, you know, I mean, just very directly, they're all books that stand alone, or I hope they stand alone anyway, but they're all books that amplify each other as well. But I feel like there's something about the first book to about say from the sea, which is a book that takes place also on the North shore, um, that just by, by sort of by proximity, it has had an influence on the other books. And I think that, um, I mean, I think that it's not unreasonable to say that if I hadn't written that, and if I hadn't developed the kind of relationship that I did with the North shore and writing that book, which is different than my lifetime of going there.
Speaker 4 00:37:55 Right. Which is different than the countless visits that I've made to that place. It's different because you learned to think about a place, or maybe it's not even that you learned to think about a place, but you, um, develop an appreciation for a place. You understand it differently when you're thinking about it in the context of being a novelist and not a tourist or a person who lives there. And, um, and that was really fertile training ground for me, for the books that came after. And certainly for, um, for, for the books that I'll be writing in the future as well. Yeah.
Speaker 5 00:38:29 And the, the, the structure that you use for this is, is quite for Northern most is quite simple, really. I mean, it's, um, the character Greta who is in the present time used kind of a conventional close third person for her. And then for ode, Ida, you, um, you use a present tense, what's your thinking there?
Speaker 4 00:38:55 Well, um, it's an interesting relationship that those two storylines have with each other. And I can tell a story now that the book is no, no, the book is done and about to be out in the world. But when I sold the book, um, I sold it on the, on the basis of the first hundred pages and my editor and I, my editor at the time, and I were talking and he said, I imagine you've got a, a good idea of how you're going to tie these two storylines together. And I just flatly and baldly lied to him and said, well, sure, of course I do. I would never try to convince you to buy those book if I didn't have what I thought was a terrific idea about bringing these stories together. In fact, I had no idea how I was going to marry them.
Speaker 4 00:39:37 I mean, I knew of course, that they were connected by, by their ancestry and by the places that they were and, and things of that nature. But I had no idea how I was going to tie the two storylines together, but the more I thought about it, the more I saw Gretta as a, as a, as the sort of character who would be looking forward in her life with the same intensity that she would be looking backward. And that those two things would really be helping guide the choices that she makes in this novel, which are not easy choices. And it was in that looking back that I thought, well, she could, she's, she's the sort of reflective character who, who, who would be interested in this and who would think about it. And so what happens if I make her a writer and, and in fact, make her the writer of this book, and then it became a terrifically fun game to play.
Speaker 4 00:40:30 Um, it, um, you know, looking for the connections, looking for the ways that she would learn the story, um, giving her pieces of information, fictional pieces of information, married with the, the real life history of this place and a polar exploration and of men and characters like, Oh, diner ends up being, and, and it was really satisfying, just a ton of fun. And there were actually several just terrifically serendipitous instances of what I can only think of his fate, for example, um, I had this notion a long time ago that I would include, uh, the character Fridtjof Nansen in this book that his famed first voyage aboard the Fram, his first effort at making it to the North pole would somehow feature in this book. And I had no idea how or why, uh, and had done and knew about it, but certainly hadn't done any research.
Speaker 4 00:41:32 Was it turns out that at the end of this fateful voyage on a day of the season, which would sort of perfectly aligned with a departure of a ode eyeliner's daughter two years previously, totally fictional that those two dates would coincide nearly identically. Um, and that in this, in the same place in a town that I picked just simply by virtue of the map of a map of looking at a map and picking the town that was farthest North in Norway. Um, and, and there were other things like that, just, just, just, uh, sort of, um, I don't, I don't know, just accidents of accidents, coincidence that that helped pull the story together. And I took that to me and probably foolishly, but certainly, um, in the way a writer might that, that, that it was meant to be that all of this was faded and this story was meant to be told this way. And she was meant to be the mouthpiece for it. Um, one of the things that's, I dunno, uh, I think you, I think you asked about this, um, but she tells, Oh, Diner's story and the first person point of view, um, which was a way for me of, of, I don't know of having her inhabit his character in his voice in a way that made it hers and not just his life so that she might, her voice might be coming through in some of the nuances of the things that he says and does
Speaker 5 00:42:56 Interesting if there's multiple narrators within the text, because there's also her grantor route who's depicted as taking down his story about how he survives on the ice and, um, how he survives the, uh, uh, the, the predatory, um, situation with the ice bear, which is a polar bear who of course kills his companion. And that's a wonderful story there. And you, you, you have him tell that directly to this character, um, grantor rude, I think that's how you pronounce it. Um, and, uh, and then her narration on top of that, there's also the translation that her new boyfriend whose name has gone out of my head. Um, he, he writes the translation of the, um, Grana rude text, right? So there's these multiple texts within the story. And I, I was, when I got finished with the book, I'm sort of thinking of you as the, the earth storyteller sort of like grantor rude scribbling in his, uh, you know, in his office. It was very evocative in that way. I wanted to ask you a little bit too, before I lose you, um, about some things that get said in there, there's towards the end, there's this question about should memory and imagination never mix, um, that gets said, and obviously, uh, nowadays we wouldn't agree with that. Who wouldn't think that that's a good idea, but what were you thinking of when you brought that, um, that polemic into place within the story?
Speaker 4 00:44:43 You know, I mean, it's just something that I've been preoccupied with for a long time, even in my first book, which is, um, by comparison anyway, a very simple story, even though it is a story within a story and, and the lighthouse road and winter, and both also contain these sorts of stories within stories, but here it's more pronounced and it's more, I'm more conscious of it. And I have done, and I did more work to develop that. And for me, it's as simple as, um, you know, on its surface, this is a wholly fictional novel, like, there's nothing true about this. None of these characters with the exception of the real life characters of Fritjof Nansen and autos for Japan, there are a couple of other real life characters exist. So it's all the work of my imagination, but I've, I've kind of, and maybe this is just, you know, the, the, the insane artists talking, but I wanted to give some of the responsibility to Gretta, um, partly because she fascinated me and was, and was so much, and is so much smarter than I am, but also because I loved the notion of there being of a character having that kind of agency.
Speaker 4 00:46:00 And so she has that odein or doesn't, Oh, diner is sort of duped into this whole thing by virtue of his circumstances and, and the way that, um, the, the way that, that grantor rude and, and, uh, bank beyond sin who's since sort of landlord and, um, employer and who he is, basically who owed diner is basically an indentured servant to, um, and so he doesn't have that agency and Gretta telling his story or learning his story and transcribing his story or whatever it is that she's doing is giving him some of that agency. And I thought that that made the connection between them, um, a little bit more, I dunno, hopefully a little bit more interesting and a little bit in a little bit more beautiful. I mean, that was certainly my intention, but I love that I became, I mean, frankly obsessed and I have pages and pages of what would have been that book, the grantor road road.
Speaker 4 00:47:00 And what's interesting to me about that, or one of the things that's interesting to me about that is that this was at a time when these polar explorers were some of the most famous people on earth and any story, any, uh, any, any bit of news about people living through the sort of experience that Ohio lives through would have received some, some acknowledgement in the press. Uh, and so it's, it's, you know, I mean, it's not only what I hope is interesting, but it's totally organic to the story as well. And then finally, I gave them that is STIG the character who you are casting about Gretta's boyfriend. It gave him a chance to, to offer her something that only he could, um, and that relationship, which we haven't talked at all about, but which to me is one of the most beautiful in the, in the book. That's his, that's his gift to her.
Speaker 5 00:47:56 That's a lovely part of the story I wanted to ask you too. The related question is about imagery and we've only got about three minutes left. Um, I was, as you know, we talked on Facebook about this. I was just up in, um, uh, in Gunflint, which is grand Marais, um, the other day. And, uh, we've, we've been staying on some land up in 25 minutes in from Hovland and, you know, having read the book and preparing for this, I'm very aware of that, that region, where the cabins would be and where the fish house would be and where, where everybody was now. But I I've never been to Norway. I never been to Hammerfest and there's a, I, as a writer myself, I, I, I struggled with how to produce imagery in the mind's eye for the reader to help the reader to the imagery that I'm trying to produce. Uh, so did, did you actually go to Hammerfest or did you make that up?
Speaker 4 00:48:54 No, I did. I did. And, and, and I, um, I, of course I've, you know, I, I spent what all of six days, I think, in Hammerfest and then, um, three days and actually in, on Spitsbergen as well, it's fall Bard, um, doing research, but I, but the truth is that I spent so much time in that place, in my imagination, um, working on the lighthouse road and working on wintering, this place where the, you know, their ancestral home, it was alive to me in a way that, um, felt almost like I had, you know, not, not how to say it. I felt very much like I had breathed that AR, but I realized that, of course I hadn't. And in order to approximate anything like authenticity that I would have to go and, and visit. And when I got there, I actually had an experience of, of it taking away from, and in certain respects and taking away from my own imagined version of the town and of the place. Um, I learned a lot in, and was able to gather a lot of resources, but, but there was something, um, there was something as much as I gained, there was also something lost in that visit, I think. Um, and so maybe that's a little bit of what you're talking about.
Speaker 5 00:50:13 Yeah. That's interesting. Well, we're getting low on time and I do want to just alert our listeners to, um, your, um, w I don't know what to call it. It's, it's, uh, a
Speaker 4 00:50:28 Launch on the 18th, is that correct? Yes. I'm publication day. So two weeks from tonight. Um, yeah, we'll be, we'll be hosting, uh, an evening of, um, reading and I'll be in conversation with my friend Curtis Sittenfeld. Um, and so hopefully it will be a lively and, um, and, and wonderful evening. Um, we'll be from the loft will be joining us. I hope it'll be a lovely evening. It's no replacement for what would have been a grand old night at the Parkway theater, which was the original plan back in April. But I guess all of us are adjusting to fewer grand old plans. Hopefully there'll be something like that next year. We'll be able to put it all together. I think so too, once again, wonderful to have you on the show, Peter, you've been listening to me and ground me speaking with the pizza guy about his new book out just outdoor coming out in the 18th Northern most highly recommended. Thanks again. Thanks again. It's always a pleasure to talk to you. Bye bye. Bye
Speaker 0 00:51:38 <inaudible>. You had been listening to right on radio on KPI 90.3 FM and streaming live on the web at <inaudible> dot org. I am once again, Liz old, I'd like to thank our guests, Wang, ping, and Peter Guy, plus our listeners and listener members who make this show possible without your support and donations, Kathy, I would not be possible. You could probably more news than full about right on radio at <inaudible> dot org slash programs slash right on radio. Plus listen to recent episodes on our brand new podcast.
