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Why? Why? In Philadelphia? I'm Terry

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Gross with fresh air. We. Gun

0:33

Banjo V has sung is anthems

0:35

and stadiums around the world. After

0:38

developing vocal problems two years ago,

0:40

he had risky vocal surgery. Today

0:43

we talk about his recovery, his long

0:45

career and the things here. looks back

0:47

on and laughs at like some of

0:49

his stage close. Is there something in

0:51

particularly regret? Being oh the ladies who.

0:53

Could I could? Also

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we hear from fantasy author Leave Our

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Do Go best known for her Why

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a trilogy? Shadow and Bone or Do

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during the Spanish Inquisition is about a

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young woman who can perform miracles and

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book critic Marine Car again reviews a

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That's coming up on fresh air weekend.

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slash whatsyourwhy. This. Is

2:48

Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Terry Gross. This

2:50

year marks the fortieth anniversary of the

2:52

first album by the Ban Ban. Josie.

2:54

since then, the Ban has sold more

2:57

than one hundred and thirty million albums.

2:59

After decades as singing and sammich songs

3:01

like Living On A Prayer, You Give

3:03

Love a Bad Name and Wanted Dead

3:05

or Alive in sold out stadiums around

3:08

the world. My guess. John Bon Jovi

3:10

started having vocal problems that got worse

3:12

over time. He tried every kind of

3:14

therapy and were none of them as

3:17

effective enough to make a significant difference.

3:19

He did what he wanted to avoid.

3:21

He had surgery, although it didn't restore

3:23

his voice to what it used to

3:25

be. the surgery made it possible for

3:28

him to sing again. Now Jon Bon

3:30

Jovi is the subject as a new

3:32

documentary called Thank You Good Night The

3:34

Been Jovi Story. It alternates between a

3:37

retrospective of his life and career and

3:39

his reckoning with his vocal problems over

3:41

the past few years. In celebration of

3:43

the fortieth anniversary and new Bon Jovi

3:45

album called Forever will be Released. in

3:48

june this year and conjunction with

3:50

the grammys punjabi was named the

3:52

music cares person of the year

3:55

the tribute concert included a performance

3:57

by his new jersey friend bruce

3:59

springsteen who Bon Jovi has known since he

4:01

was a teenager. Let's start with

4:03

the best known track from his first album

4:06

called Bon Jovi which was released 40 years

4:08

ago. The song is Runaway.

4:30

You're leaving another world, trying

4:32

to get a message through.

4:39

You're holding me in. Should've

4:43

seen it in your eyes, but

4:46

you won't hold it down

4:48

today. Oh,

4:52

she's a man. That's

4:56

the song I'm holding

4:59

you today. She's

5:03

a little

5:06

lonely. That's

5:09

Runaway from Bon Jovi's first album recorded

5:11

40 years ago. John Bon Jovi,

5:13

welcome back to Fresh Air. Thank

5:16

you. Congratulations on the anniversary and

5:18

the documentary and the new album

5:21

and the successful surgery. It's

5:23

great to be here and it's great to talk to

5:25

you again and look forward to this interview. Oh,

5:28

me too. So let's go back 40 years

5:30

ago when the song we just heard was

5:32

released. What were you hoping for

5:34

when you released your first album and what

5:36

did you expect from your future? Boy,

5:41

the future was bright but nobody had any idea

5:43

where it would lead us. I

5:45

think that all you could ever have prayed for

5:48

was that somebody would give you an opportunity. And

5:51

for me, that opportunity came when I

5:53

went to see a DJ in

5:56

1983 and was fortunate

5:58

enough that that new radio station... did

6:00

not have a receptionist. When I tapped

6:02

on the window of the broadcast booth,

6:05

the DJ made the sign of shush

6:07

by putting his finger across his lips

6:09

and the program director came out. He

6:12

said, what can I help you with? And I

6:14

told him I'd love him to hear some music. They

6:16

asked me to wait until after the shift. He

6:18

came out, he heard that song run away and he said, you know,

6:20

that's a hit song. And I said, I know. And

6:23

then they proceeded to tell me about

6:25

a homegrown talent album that they wanted

6:27

to support. And that

6:29

song could be on that record. Little

6:32

did I know that that was going to lead to

6:34

a major record deal that I still have today, some

6:36

40 years later. So

6:38

40 years ago, when you were starting

6:40

your recording career, who

6:42

did you think you would be in your 60s?

6:45

Did you think you'd still be performing? Did you

6:47

think you'd ever be in your 60s? Because when

6:49

you're 20s, you don't think, you know, 60s seems

6:51

like leaps and leaps away.

6:53

You know, back in

6:55

those days, I think as

6:58

far ahead as I'd ever dreamt was the year

7:00

2000, because it was that magical

7:02

science fiction number, where are we as a

7:04

race going to be in 2000? At

7:07

that time, I was meant to be 38 years

7:09

old, I thought, am I going to still have a

7:11

record deal? Will I have a family? But I never

7:13

dreamt about 2024 and a 40th anniversary, who

7:18

could have? Were you listening to

7:20

any performers who are the age you are now?

7:26

Sure, but they were my parents' favorites,

7:29

Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Gene

7:32

Autry. So

7:35

did I, somebody just asked what was the first record I

7:37

recall, and it was Gene Autry. But

7:41

so they weren't going to have been my choices, but

7:43

they were my parents' choices. But if you had considered

7:45

40 years ago, where

7:47

would rock and roll be,

7:50

you know, for men and women who were 60

7:53

and on, there weren't anybody to refer

7:55

to. And now you can look in the Rolling Stones

7:58

or 80 plus. the

8:00

E Street Band are 70 plus and U2

8:03

and Bon Jovi are 60 plus and

8:05

very active. So

8:07

you're kind of at a turning point in

8:09

your career because of your voice issues. How

8:12

do you feel about your voice now and your

8:15

ability to say? The public are

8:17

going to see as

8:19

of this interview and the docu-series

8:22

was shot one and two years

8:25

ago. I did have

8:28

some major issues, things

8:30

that weren't visible to me because

8:33

any singer knows about something called nodules

8:36

and they'd look like a little pimple on the vocal

8:38

cord and they can easily cut those off and you

8:41

recover from it. Mine was a

8:43

little different where one of my chords was actually

8:45

atrophying and they had to put in an

8:48

implant, a cortex implant outside

8:50

of the chords to rebuild

8:52

them. The process has

8:55

been slower than I'd hoped for but

8:57

the progress and the process are really

9:00

doing very well. I'm currently able

9:02

to sing. For me now the bar

9:04

is can I do two and a half hours a night, four

9:06

nights a week. How did

9:09

your vocal cord, how did

9:11

one of the fold atrophied, I

9:13

think of atrophied happening

9:15

because you're not using something, whereas

9:17

for you if anything you were overusing it.

9:20

I think that is the bottom line is that

9:22

I was overusing it even though I'm trained and

9:25

I have studied the craft for these 40

9:27

years. Eventually

9:29

the body gives out. It's

9:32

not dissimilar than being an athlete and I

9:34

equate it to Tiger

9:36

Woods or Michael Jordan or Tom Brady

9:38

and when they'd had those major setbacks

9:41

they wondered would they come back and

9:44

it took a lot and it took medical professionals

9:46

to figure out the right way to bring you

9:48

back. This is not a virtue

9:50

I am well known for. I

9:54

lack in the patient's department but

9:56

every day I'm at it. Every day

9:59

is some kind of therapy. to try to get back to

10:01

that two and a half hours a night. What's

10:03

the work that you have to do? It

10:06

began very slowly with just speech therapies

10:09

and then it's vocal therapy that starts as any

10:13

singer would understand the vocal warm-ups

10:16

but eventually it's gotten back into

10:18

retraining the chords because of the

10:20

compensation that I had to do.

10:23

When you compensate for

10:25

as long as I had to as a

10:27

result of this chord

10:30

deteriorating and I couldn't

10:32

understand how or why, I've now

10:34

had to untangle that mess and that's sort

10:36

of the process I'm in now. It's

10:39

like if you're limping in you favor

10:41

one leg. Correct, exactly that. Yeah. What

10:43

was the conversation you had in your own head

10:45

about whether to retire from music or

10:48

keep at it and try to keep

10:50

finding solutions? I

10:53

jokingly have said I would never become

10:56

the fat Elvis. I don't

10:58

mean that with any disrespect

11:00

but I love

11:04

what I do and the audience deserves

11:06

the best of me and I

11:09

can only give the best. I'm not

11:11

willing to be out there walking

11:14

through the motions or changing the keys of

11:16

this. I'm just not interested. Now

11:19

with that said, Tare, in truth, I

11:21

can always write another record. I'm

11:24

not worried about my ability to write another

11:26

song. If I can't hit

11:29

Bs and Cs, which at 62 years old

11:31

is sort of fair, I could

11:33

have walked away. I just haven't had to

11:35

come to that conclusion because as

11:37

I said the process and

11:39

the progress are steady. My

11:42

guest is John Bondrovi. There's a

11:44

new four-part documentary series called Thank

11:46

You Good Night. The Bondrovi Story

11:48

that's streaming on Hulu. We'll

11:50

hear more of our conversation after a break.

11:53

I'm Terri Gross and this is Fresh Air

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13:02

This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Terri Gross.

13:05

Let's get back to my interview with Jon Bon Jovi.

13:07

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the

13:10

band Bon Jovi's first album. They've since sold

13:12

over 130 million albums

13:14

and played to sold-out stadiums around

13:16

the world. A new four-part

13:18

documentary about Jon Bon Jovi's life and

13:20

career called Thank You, Good Night, the

13:22

Bon Jovi Story is streaming on Hulu.

13:27

What kind of balance have you wanted to

13:29

have in your life between

13:32

wanting to stay youthful

13:34

and hold on to all

13:37

the things you were able to do when you

13:39

were in your 20s and started having

13:42

a real career and being

13:46

in the moment and in

13:48

the body and mind of the

13:50

person who you are now in your early 60s? Well,

13:54

I think that my goal always

13:56

was to evolve and not to ever

13:58

be the same. I never have

14:01

pretended to be 25 when

14:03

I was even 35. When

14:07

I was 25, I accepted, acknowledged, and

14:09

participated in all the mannerisms of a

14:11

25-year-old kid figuring it out. But if

14:13

I had come and tried to be

14:15

on fresh air at 62, pretending

14:18

to be 25, I think this interview would

14:20

have been over by now. And... I

14:22

don't think you'd have judged for that, but

14:24

you're probably right. I

14:26

have a feeling that's the case. But,

14:30

you know, I think part of having a

14:32

career, as I've been blessed enough to have,

14:34

is that our audience grew with us. Now,

14:36

whether you got on or off the

14:39

path with us at any given time, it's

14:42

completely understandable. Because, you know, life goes

14:44

on, and maybe you're not even listening

14:46

to rock and roll

14:48

music the way you once did. But others

14:51

have gotten on that ride, you know, at different

14:53

junctures. And so whether it was 2000, when it's

14:55

my life, or 2005, when

14:57

we were the first rock band

14:59

to ever win a number one country song,

15:02

or what will happen now with this docu-series

15:04

in 2024, as a

15:06

new generation is going to hear this music for the first

15:08

time. And that's all

15:10

well and good, but the new age and

15:13

era in which we live allows for music

15:15

to be discovered in a new way, and

15:17

therefore it's not even in a time

15:20

capsule, it's just in there forever.

15:23

Music, you press a button and it's playing

15:25

in your ears. You don't see the visuals,

15:27

you don't associate it with anything, you just

15:29

hear a song. And if the

15:32

song's good, it's gonna resonate with the next

15:34

generation. The visuals, you

15:36

mentioned in the documentary that you

15:38

hated rock videos. And I

15:40

was kinda glad to hear that. Because

15:42

what always bothered me is that it

15:44

was somebody's interpretation of the song, or

15:46

not even, just somebody's idea of like,

15:49

great surreal images. And it

15:51

kind of was so distracting from what the song

15:54

was saying. Yep, you know it's

15:56

hard enough to learn your craft,

15:58

and then to learn how to write a song. song. Then

16:01

when they thrust upon you the opportunity to

16:03

make these videos and or album

16:05

covers, I can't tell you that it

16:08

came to me easily. And especially on

16:10

those first couple records when you knew

16:12

nothing about nothing, when they force fed

16:14

you a director or an album artist,

16:17

you just said yes. And

16:19

it wasn't until the third album, the fourth

16:21

album, and now my 18th album, that you

16:23

take control of these things. Is

16:26

there something you particularly regret being told? Oh,

16:28

the 80s. But

16:32

my life, as I told you, is so blessed, Terry, that

16:34

you know those baby pictures of

16:36

me and those clothes are public.

16:38

And that's my penance, I'll accept

16:40

it. So

16:44

it was your third album that

16:47

got really popular and it had your most

16:50

famous anthems on it and

16:52

it totally changed your life and the life

16:54

of everyone in the band. One

16:57

of the anthems on that album is You

16:59

Give Love a Bad Name, which

17:01

has a line, Shot in the Heart and You're

17:03

to Blame, You Give Love a Bad Name. On

17:06

your first album that was released 40 years ago,

17:08

you have a song called Shot in the Heart.

17:10

That's a completely different song but it has that

17:12

Shot in the Heart line. And

17:14

I keep wondering like, how did you decide to

17:17

recycle the line? And my theory is that Shot

17:19

in the Heart is such a good line that

17:22

you thought, not that many people know that song.

17:24

I have to put it in the song. That

17:27

really works. So

17:29

you're pretty much pretty accurate

17:31

there. Shot through

17:33

the heart. Yeah, Shot through the Heart. Yes, yes,

17:36

yeah, I think that's pretty accurate there. Yeah,

17:38

to be honest, you know,

17:40

the title You Give Love a Bad Name just sounded

17:42

like a smash hit. And so I said that line,

17:44

having said it once before, I guess

17:47

it's proof that I came up with the line.

17:50

But yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm

17:53

guilty as charged. I

17:56

wasn't as prolific as I

17:58

became but early on, That

18:00

was a line in a song on a little

18:02

known album that we used again. Mmm. So

18:05

I'm gonna play a little bit of both songs So

18:09

we'll hear shot in the heart from banjovi's first

18:11

album 40 years ago And then you give

18:13

love a bad name from the third album

18:30

Oh Oh

19:14

Two songs by banjovi that have a line

19:16

shot in the heart John

19:19

what did you learn about songwriting in between

19:21

that first Version of a song

19:24

with the line shot in the heart and

19:26

the second version which was a huge hit

19:28

Yes, it was well like with anything else one

19:30

would hope that you get better with time and

19:33

experience It was

19:35

the third album that everything changed and like

19:37

everything else, you know, you could you started

19:39

to figure it out you know,

19:41

you started to think about what other

19:43

songs were on the charts what you did

19:46

with an audience and why a song worked

19:48

live or why it didn't work live and

19:52

Playing in a bar in New Jersey was one way

19:54

to cut your teeth But getting

19:56

out there and playing to audiences don't even

19:58

speak your language You had

20:00

to find other means to win over

20:02

the hearts and minds of the audiences.

20:05

So now that when I hear somebody say, I

20:07

learned how to speak English singing

20:09

your songs, you better learn how to do

20:12

it better. And that's really what's come with it.

20:15

You started performing in Bars and Asbury

20:17

Park, where you heard Springsteen in his

20:19

really early days and Southside Johnny. Can

20:23

you compare who you were when

20:26

you were performing at Bars and Asbury

20:28

Park versus when you

20:30

started performing in stadiums?

20:33

Oh boy. You

20:36

know, Southside and Bruce

20:39

and then of course all

20:41

the members of the E Street Band and the Jukes

20:43

were at least 12-ish

20:46

years older. So

20:48

they were not only role models,

20:50

but they were friendly to

20:52

the young kids. They were the

20:57

influence and they were telling

20:59

you about their influence. So

21:02

that was an integral thing too,

21:04

is they introduced me

21:08

to not only their music, but

21:10

the music that they listened to,

21:12

which was then helpful for me to understand

21:15

what the process was and why you wrote

21:17

songs and how you wrote songs. But

21:20

that was, although it was

21:22

a huge part of my

21:24

upbringing, then I was also

21:26

influenced by what was contemporary

21:29

rock and roll, you know, Queen

21:32

and Led Zeppelin and Bad

21:34

Company and Elton John and all

21:36

the things that were on the radio in the latter

21:38

70s. But those

21:40

things just seemed bigger and bigger

21:43

than life. They

21:45

were just posters on your wall, whereas

21:47

Southside Johnny and Bruce Springsteen, although they

21:49

were making albums and were my childhood

21:52

heroes, were

21:54

25 miles south of my house. So

21:57

On any given night in those bars, you're

21:59

going to see. The one of those seventeen

22:01

men hanging yourself in the bar and

22:03

it was sorta like being that close

22:05

to to Santa Clause because you'd you

22:07

know something fictional that you could you

22:09

made real easy. Go in, touch them.

22:11

You could talk to them, You could

22:13

watch them. Springsteen when

22:15

he performs. doesn't wear a like

22:18

costumes. You know it's. He's he's

22:20

like new jeans and a t shirt

22:22

so that his his costume. Oh.

22:24

Is that a magazine editor? Sadler

22:26

logo of Deadly as a Jimmy Buffett?

22:28

Weird swords in flip flops. That was

22:31

Jimmy. Or a that you know.

22:33

But. Anyhow, guy had yet. so when you

22:35

are performing and bars you probably just

22:38

wore jeans and a t shirt. seizures,

22:40

energy, answers, or. Yeah yes so I'd

22:42

as I can compare. I'm

22:45

can easily persona when you were

22:47

performing in bars. Compare. That

22:49

to who you were on stage when

22:51

she started performing in stadiums and if

22:53

he sort of yourself as having a

22:55

persona has stairs when she started doing

22:57

stadium concert. Well.

23:00

Having grown up in poverty, we're

23:02

going to do things and try

23:04

things and and see what kind

23:06

of shoes fit and. Blue.

23:09

Jays in t shirts were what we

23:11

were meant to be. But the in

23:13

in honesty. In Nineteen

23:15

Eighty Four Eighty Five Eighty Six

23:17

when you are being told by

23:20

the quote Unquote Record Company and

23:22

the managers in the agents in

23:24

the in the headliners that you

23:26

are supporting, this will help you

23:28

be more successful in all honesty.

23:31

We were probably trying on shoes that

23:33

didn't sit. And we were lumped in

23:35

with a certain group of. Fans.

23:38

That I never bought their records

23:40

and I wasn't necessarily fans of,

23:43

but we were cutting our teeth

23:45

on that. International

23:47

Stage. This. Story

23:49

and want you to tell that you're

23:52

telling the documentary series and it's your

23:54

planet and Russia. When. The

23:56

Soviet Union are designed by yes

23:58

and. No One There are no Bon

24:01

Jovi know million in the audience so

24:03

you felt like, oh, and. Eat.

24:05

It won't be. Upstaged by the

24:07

other ban that that they did note

24:09

that. I think you're opening for

24:11

them. It was years. The store. Yeah,

24:15

Arthur's manager had gotten himself

24:17

in some trouble and. As

24:19

a part of his clean. He

24:22

had as the courts if he were

24:24

to put on a show in what

24:26

was then the Soviet Union and he

24:28

took a bunch of reasons are like

24:30

as an ambassador from the United States

24:32

or something. Good overview on drug dealer

24:34

to be as bad as I know

24:36

that we went and. It

24:38

was a bunch of the bands

24:40

of the era and we knew

24:42

everybody and. We. Were

24:44

at the height of the New Jersey record

24:46

which was the fall of the slippery when

24:48

wet so we were gonna close the show

24:51

and. Realizing once

24:53

we got their dead the

24:55

Soviet Union did not as.

24:58

Tower. Records senators were stated now

25:00

living on a prayer and you

25:02

give of a bad name or

25:04

runaway on the radio and on

25:06

so you're playing and winning hearts

25:08

the way you did when you

25:10

were completely unknown kids on the

25:12

stage in New Jersey and we

25:14

followed a German banned by the

25:16

name of The Scorpions who we

25:18

had once open for in Nineteen

25:20

Eighty Four and they were of

25:22

reduce meant for the slide Been

25:24

phenomenal live band and to tell

25:26

you the honest to goodness truth.

25:28

They won the hearts of that crowd that day

25:31

in and we came on and follow him and

25:33

I started. Speaking. English and

25:35

telling the stories of the songs

25:37

and performing and we were falling

25:39

flat. Okay, fine. we got

25:41

our butts kicked the next night. Now

25:44

that I had had. of feel for

25:46

what it was an over the experience

25:48

in all of the influence in my

25:51

career i said i see the trick

25:53

i got it sorts of a russian

25:55

soldier backstage took his uniform from traded

25:57

him some blue jeans and some Harley

26:00

Davidson t-shirts to be honest and

26:03

I got his uniform and I said to

26:05

the band start this first song just keep

26:07

playing the intro over and over again I'm

26:10

going to enter from the back of the

26:12

entire stadium and I was dressed as a

26:14

Russian soldier and in that documentary

26:16

you see the film where I throw the

26:18

coat I take off the gloves I eventually

26:21

take off the long coat and hat jump

26:23

up on the stage and perform the song

26:25

30 years later I went back

26:27

and I played that same stadium

26:30

and I was telling this story to a

26:32

member of the press and

26:34

I began the story and he said can I finish

26:37

the story for you and I said wow you know

26:39

this story he said I was there and

26:41

he said it became folklore here that's you know

26:43

how you won the hearts of the the

26:46

Russian kids yeah

26:49

that's been really great to talk with you thank

26:51

you so much and just congratulations

26:54

on all that you've done I

26:57

appreciate that very much and I really was

26:59

looking forward to today and it's great to

27:01

speak with you again the new documentary

27:03

series about Bon Jovi is streaming

27:05

on Hulu the band's new album

27:07

forever will be released in June

27:10

our book

27:17

critic marine car again has a review

27:19

of a hefty new collection of letters

27:21

by one of America's greatest poets here's

27:23

Marines appreciation of the letters of

27:26

Emily Dickinson among

27:28

the great moments in literary history

27:30

I wish I could have witnessed is

27:33

that day sometime after May 15th 1886

27:35

when Lavinia

27:38

Dickinson entered the bedroom of

27:40

her newly deceased older sister

27:43

and began opening

27:45

drawers out

27:47

sprang poems some 1800 of them given

27:49

that Emily Dickinson

27:53

had only published 10 poems

27:55

during her lifetime this discovery

27:58

was a shock Hope

28:01

is the thing with feathers that

28:03

purchase in the soul begins

28:05

one of those now famous poems.

28:08

Whatever Dickinson hoped for her

28:10

poems, she could never have envisioned

28:13

how they'd resonate with readers, nor

28:15

how curious those readers would be about

28:18

her life, much of it spent

28:20

within her father's house in Amherst, and

28:23

in later years within that bedroom.

28:27

Every so often, the reading

28:29

public's image of Emily Dickinson

28:31

shifts. For much of the 20th

28:33

century, she was a Faye Stevie

28:36

Nicks type figure. Check

28:38

out, for instance, the 1976 film

28:41

of Julie Harris's lauded

28:43

one-woman show, The Bell

28:45

of Amherst. A

28:48

feminist Emily Dickinson emerged during

28:50

the second women's movement when

28:53

poems like I'm Wife were

28:55

celebrated for their avant-garde anger.

28:58

And jumping to the present,

29:00

a new monumental volume of

29:03

Dickinson's letters, the first in

29:05

over 60 years, gives

29:07

us an engaged Emily Dickinson,

29:11

a woman in conversation with

29:13

the world through gossip, as

29:15

well as remarks about books,

29:17

politics, and the signal events

29:19

of her age, particularly

29:21

the Civil War. This

29:24

new collection of the letters

29:26

of Emily Dickinson is published

29:28

by Harvard's Belknap Press and

29:31

edited by two Dickinson scholars,

29:34

Kristan Miller and Donald Mitchell.

29:37

To accurately date some of

29:40

Dickinson's letters, they've studied weather

29:42

reports and seasonal blooming and

29:44

harvest cycles in 19th century

29:47

Amherst. They've also

29:49

added some 300 previously

29:51

uncollected letters to this volume

29:53

for a grand total of

29:55

1,304 letters. The

30:01

result is that the letters

30:03

of Emily Dickinson reads like

30:05

the closest thing we'll probably

30:07

ever have to an intimate

30:09

autobiography of the poet. The

30:12

first letter here is written by

30:14

an 11-year-old Dickinson to her brother

30:17

Austin away at school. It's

30:19

a breathless kid-sister marvel of

30:22

run-on sentences about yellow hens

30:24

and skunks and poor cousin

30:26

Zabina who had a fit

30:28

the other day and bit

30:30

his tongue. The

30:32

final letter by an ailing

30:35

55-year-old Dickinson, most likely

30:37

the last she wrote

30:39

before falling unconscious on

30:41

May 13, 1886,

30:44

was to her cousins Louisa

30:46

and Francis Norcross. It

30:49

reads, Little Cousins

30:51

Called Back Emily.

30:54

In between is a life

30:56

filled with visitors, chores, and

30:58

recipes for donuts and coconut

31:00

cakes. There's mention of

31:03

the racist minstrel stereotype Jim

31:05

Crow as well as of

31:07

public figures like Florence Nightingale

31:09

and Walt Whitman. There

31:12

are also allusions to the death

31:14

toll of the ongoing Civil War.

31:18

Dickinson's loyal dog, Carlo, walks

31:20

with her and frogs and

31:22

even flies keep her company.

31:25

Indeed in an 1859 letter

31:28

about one such winged companion,

31:31

Belle of Amherst's charm alternates

31:33

with cold-blooded callousness.

31:37

Dickinson writes to her cousin Louisa, I

31:40

enjoy much with a fly

31:42

during sister's absence, not

31:45

one of your blue monsters, but

31:47

a timid creature that hops from

31:49

pain to pain so very cheerfully

31:52

and hums and thrums a sort

31:55

of speck piano. I'll

31:57

kill him the day Lavinia comes home

31:59

for our I shan't need him

32:01

anymore." Dickinson's

32:04

singular voice comes into its own in

32:06

the letters of the 1860s, which often

32:10

blur into poems, cryptic,

32:12

comic, and charged with

32:15

awe. A simple

32:17

thank-you note to her soulmate

32:19

and beloved sister-in-law, Susan Gilbert

32:22

Dickinson, reads, Dear

32:24

Sue, The supper was delicate

32:26

and strange. I

32:28

ate it with compunction, As I

32:30

would eat a vision. One

32:34

thousand three hundred and four

32:36

letters, And still they're not

32:38

enough. Scholars

32:40

estimate that we only have about

32:42

one tenth of the letters Dickinson

32:44

ever wrote. And

32:46

on that momentous day in 1886,

32:50

Lavinia entered her sister's

32:52

bedroom to find and

32:54

successfully burn all the

32:56

letters Dickinson herself had

32:59

received from others during

33:01

her lifetime. Such

33:03

was the custom of the day, which

33:06

makes this new volume of

33:08

Dickinson's letters feel like both

33:10

an intrusion and

33:12

an outwitting of the silence of

33:15

death, something I want

33:17

to believe Dickinson would have relished.

33:20

Marie Karrigan is a professor of

33:22

literature at Georgetown University. She

33:25

reviewed the letters of Emily Dickinson. Coming

33:28

up, we hear from best-selling fantasy author Lee

33:30

Bardugo. She has a new

33:32

novel for adults set during the Spanish

33:34

Inquisition. It's about a young woman who

33:36

can perform miracles. I'm

33:38

Terri Gross and this is Fresh Air Weekend. Imagine

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your future differently at cappella.edu.

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34:52

Bardugo is one of today's most

34:54

successful and popular authors working in

34:56

the fantasy genre, writing books for

34:58

both the adult and YA markets.

35:01

She became famous with her Shadow and

35:03

Bone novels, which took place in a

35:05

world inspired by 19th century Russia. They

35:08

were adapted into a series for Netflix. Her

35:11

latest novel, The Familiar, takes place in

35:13

16th century Spain. Bardugo

35:16

spoke with our producer, Sam Brigger. Here's

35:18

Sam. The heroine of

35:20

The Familiar is Lucia, a young woman with

35:23

little prospects, working in the kitchen of a

35:25

not very important noble and his wife in

35:27

Madrid. However, Lucia has a

35:29

secret. She's able to perform small miracles.

35:33

Like when the cook burns the bread, she's able

35:35

to unburn it. Her secret

35:37

is discovered by her employer, the haughty

35:39

woman of the house, Donya Valentina, who

35:41

imagines she will be able to rise

35:43

in society, having such a woman working

35:46

for her. But

35:48

the story of Lucia's parlor trick like

35:50

miracles travels fast and members of King

35:52

Philip II's court take notice. Perhaps,

35:55

they think, she can serve a larger purpose

35:57

in the pursuits of Spain's empire. But

36:00

first she must prove her magical skills in

36:02

a contest with other miracle workers, some

36:05

of whom may be hucksters, some might be real.

36:08

And in a society policed by the Inquisition,

36:10

she must prove that her abilities are the

36:12

products of God's blessings and not the work

36:15

of the devil, which would surely be

36:17

the conclusion if it's revealed that she is

36:19

of Jewish descent, that she

36:21

is one of the conversos, the Jews

36:23

that in 1492, when faced with

36:25

exile from Spain, converted to Catholicism to

36:28

remain. Lucia faces

36:30

mortal traps everywhere as she tries to find

36:32

a place for herself in the

36:34

oppressive world she's been born into and as

36:36

she discovers love. Leigh

36:38

Bardugo is well known for her YA books

36:40

in the Shadow and Bone and Six of

36:43

Crows series, as well as her adult books,

36:45

Ninth House and Hellbent, which take place on

36:47

a version of Yale's campus where she went

36:49

to school, where magic is used to maintain

36:51

the power and privilege of the school's secret

36:53

societies like Skull and Bones. Leigh

36:56

Bardugo, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank

36:58

you for having me. I'd like to start, if

37:01

you're willing, with a reading from the new

37:03

book The Familiar. This is after

37:06

Donia Valentina thinks that

37:08

something is up because she

37:11

came into the kitchen, saw there was some burnt

37:13

bread. She got very angry, yelled at

37:15

the cook, and then when she comes back, the

37:18

bread is no longer burnt. She thinks maybe someone's

37:20

pulling a trick on her, but she's not sure

37:22

what's going on. And we're going to

37:24

hear from Lucia's point of view here.

37:28

When Lucia had seen the burnt bread, she hadn't

37:30

thought much about passing her hand over it and

37:33

singing the words her aunt had taught her. Aboltar

37:36

Cazal, Aboltar Mazal. A

37:38

change of scene, a change of fortune. She

37:41

sang them very softly. They were not

37:43

quite Spanish, just as Lucia was not

37:45

quite Spanish. But Donia Valentina would

37:47

never have her in this house, even

37:49

in the dark, hot, windowless kitchen, if

37:51

she detected a whiff of Jew. Lucia

37:54

knew that she should be careful, but it

37:57

was difficult not to do something the easy

37:59

way whenever Everything else was so hard. She

38:02

slept every night on the cellar floor on a

38:04

roll of rag she'd sewn together, a sack of

38:06

flour for her pillow. She woke before

38:08

dawn and went out into the cold alley

38:10

to relieve herself, then returned and stoked the

38:12

fire before walking to the Plaza del Arabal

38:15

to fetch water from the fountain, where she

38:17

saw other scullions and washer women and wives,

38:19

set her good mornings, then filled her buckets

38:21

and bounced them on her shoulders to make

38:23

the trip back to Calle de dos Santos.

38:26

She set the water to boil, picked the bugs out

38:28

of the millet, and began the day's bread if Aguero

38:30

hadn't yet seen to it. It

38:32

was a cook's job to visit the market,

38:34

but since her son had fallen in love

38:36

with that dashing lady playwright, it was Lucia

38:39

who took the little pouch of money and

38:41

walked the stalls, trying to find the best

38:43

price for lamb and heads of garlic and

38:45

hazelnuts. She was bad at

38:47

haggling, so sometimes, on the way back

38:49

to Casa Ordonio, if she found herself

38:51

alone on an empty street, she would

38:53

give her basket a shake and sing,

38:55

¡Onde iras, amigos toparas! Wherever you

38:58

go, may you find friends! And

39:01

where there had been six eggs, there would be

39:03

a dozen. Thanks

39:05

so much for reading that. You

39:07

know, magic has been a prevailing interest in all of your

39:09

books. Why do you think you're so drawn to the idea

39:11

of magic? I think

39:14

that magic is essentially just a

39:16

metaphor, right? It's just another

39:18

kind of power. And I

39:20

think, as I've written, the magic in my

39:22

books has gotten smaller, and the

39:25

real world has overtaken it, because

39:28

I think magic is at its

39:30

most interesting when it is limited

39:33

and when it exists for a

39:35

metaphor for power. So in Ninth

39:37

House and Hellbent, there are very

39:39

real secret societies at Yale that,

39:41

to one degree or another, wield

39:43

economic, social, political influence. Now, what

39:45

if they wielded magical influence as

39:47

well? And what does it mean

39:49

to put that kind of power

39:51

into the hands of a bunch

39:54

of undergrads? When

39:56

I was writing this book, The Familiar,

39:58

I wanted to... to pose the

40:01

question of what magic might look

40:03

like to the church of the

40:05

time and where the line between

40:08

magic and miracle actually exists.

40:12

Lee, I wanted to talk about the series that

40:14

you've been working on. The first two books came

40:16

out before the familiar. It's, I

40:18

guess, I'm gonna call it the Ninth House

40:20

series. There's two of them so far, Ninth

40:22

House and Hellbent. And this

40:24

is a really clever rewriting of

40:27

Yale University, where you went to school. Yale

40:30

is known for having these secret societies,

40:33

where a lot of the most famous alum

40:35

were members, perhaps the best known of these

40:37

societies, the Skull and Bones, where the

40:39

two Bush presidents were members. But

40:42

so you've imbued them with

40:44

the ability to do magic.

40:46

They all have specialties like

40:48

Skull and Bones, prognosticates by

40:51

reading human entrails. So

40:53

how did this idea come to you? I

40:56

mean, I think it began when I was an undergrad.

40:59

When I was an undergraduate, we still

41:01

wrote letters and our post office was

41:03

off campus and I remember walking back

41:05

reading a letter as a freshman. And I

41:08

looked up from my letter and to my

41:10

right were the gates of the Grove Street

41:12

Cemetery, which is really right in the middle

41:14

of campus. And there's a huge, the gates

41:17

are these sort of huge Neo-Egyptian

41:19

plinth that reads, the dead shall be raised.

41:22

And to the left was a massive

41:24

mausoleum on a street corner, the size

41:26

of an apartment building with black wrought

41:28

iron fences around it with black wrought

41:31

iron snakes crawling up them. And later

41:33

I would learn that this was Book

41:35

and Snake, which is one of what

41:37

are called the Ancient Eight, the old

41:40

landed societies that have tombs

41:42

or really just clubhouses, windowless

41:44

clubhouses. But called tombs, right?

41:47

They are called tombs and sometimes

41:49

crypts. Yeah. So these are societies who

41:51

in theory are secret,

41:53

but who build these giant,

41:55

very showy crypts

41:58

around campus, the scrolling One

42:00

key one is beautiful. It has a kind

42:02

of Moorish facade. Wolf's

42:04

Head is a giant English Tudor mansion that takes over

42:06

the weekend. They want you to notice their secret places.

42:09

One hundred percent. Look at us, don't look at us. And

42:12

so I was obsessed with these when I was an

42:14

undergraduate. I found them fascinating. And so I

42:16

think this story has been percolating for

42:19

a long time. Your

42:21

main character, Alex, is very much a fish

42:23

out of water in this environment. She comes

42:26

from California. She's a former drug

42:28

addict and survived this terrible homicide.

42:32

She sees ghosts and is able to use

42:34

them temporarily to sort of gain strength. She

42:36

has a very cynical view of humanity and

42:38

she has a little empathy for the many

42:41

privileged students she encounters at Yale. In

42:44

fact, I really think sometimes the only thing

42:46

that Alex likes about Yale is the architecture.

42:48

Does she reflect it? I don't think that's fair.

42:50

I'm going to be real. I don't think that's fair.

42:52

She loves her roommates. She likes them. She loves

42:55

her roommates. She loves Mercy and Lauren. She

42:57

likes the cafeteria. Yes, she

42:59

loves the cafeteria. She loves food. In

43:01

fact, that was the one thing my editor made me

43:03

trim down in the book was he said there

43:05

are too many rapturous descriptions of food. But

43:08

I had grown up eating frozen dinners. And

43:11

so when I went to everybody else was talking about how

43:13

bad the food was. And I thought I

43:15

had, you know, I was rolling

43:17

in clover and she likes

43:19

her classes. She loves the idea of learning

43:21

for the sake of learning. She just doesn't

43:23

feel it's an option for her. OK,

43:26

fair. But let's say she has very

43:28

ambivalent views of Yale. Does that reflect your

43:30

experience when you went there? Yes.

43:33

I think without the wish

43:35

fulfillment aspect of Yale

43:37

and of a place like Yale,

43:40

both the beauty of it

43:42

and the promises it makes, a story

43:44

like this doesn't work. Because

43:46

if it wasn't if there wasn't an

43:48

allure to this, if there wasn't

43:50

pleasure in these things, then why

43:52

would we stay? Why why

43:55

even bother? So that is

43:57

an important part of the story. And that's

43:59

certainly so. thing I felt when

44:02

I went to Yale, I

44:04

felt as if I was surrounded

44:06

by people who spoke a language

44:08

I did not understand. They had

44:10

a vocabulary I did not understand.

44:12

They had family experiences I did

44:14

not understand. And so I constantly

44:16

felt like an imposter when

44:18

I was there and that is certainly something

44:20

that Alex is contending with. You

44:23

said that before you went to college you thought

44:26

of your life as small in California.

44:28

Yeah, I mean I think for most young

44:31

people life is small because we don't have

44:33

a lot of autonomy. For

44:36

me there was home and there was school and there was

44:38

the mall and I was a big nerd so there weren't

44:40

a lot of parties. It was me hanging

44:42

out with my friend Lizzie and watching

44:44

horror movies and eating sour candy on

44:46

the weekends. I was not

44:49

an edgy kid. I was a lonely

44:51

kid and I will say that I

44:54

wondered when I was young if I

44:56

might be a sociopath because

44:59

I didn't feel a deep connection to

45:02

my friend group. I thought maybe and

45:04

I read a lot so I knew

45:06

what I had read Anne

45:08

of Green Gables. I knew what friendship was

45:10

supposed to be like and so I thought

45:13

maybe there's something fundamentally wrong with me that

45:15

I cannot connect to the people around me.

45:17

When the truth was they were wonderful people

45:20

but they were not the people who were going to

45:22

be my tribe, my

45:24

army. I just had to meet more

45:28

human beings. I went to a tiny

45:30

school and I was not

45:32

somebody who was brave enough to step out of my

45:34

bubble very often. Do you remember

45:36

the first time where you sort of felt a strong connection

45:39

to someone? Yeah,

45:42

my dear friend Hedwig, yes her

45:44

name is Hedwig, she lived upstairs

45:47

for me. She wasn't one of my roommates but

45:49

I remember when we met feeling

45:52

a kind of instant kinship. I remember

45:55

thinking, oh she actually gets my sense of humor.

45:57

This is somebody who I love. doesn't

46:00

just tolerate me or think I'm

46:02

quirky, this is someone who will

46:05

celebrate this and whose quirkiness I

46:07

can celebrate in turn. So Lee,

46:09

you grew up in Los Angeles. Yes. Well

46:12

you described yourself as a goth kid, so

46:14

I'm guessing sunny Southern California

46:16

wasn't necessarily a good fit for you? No,

46:18

I live

46:23

in Los Angeles now but I never intended

46:25

to come back. When I went

46:27

to college I wanted to get as far away

46:29

as I possibly could. I think

46:34

like a lot of young people

46:36

felt alien and you

46:38

know I had gone to this very

46:41

small school, a lot of smart

46:43

kids at it and then my

46:45

mom remarried and we moved and

46:47

I started junior high and a

46:50

very prolonged awkward phase and all

46:52

of a sudden I was

46:55

at this school where everyone was tan

46:57

and blonde and loved the beach and

46:59

hacky sack and volleyball was the most

47:02

important thing and books and

47:05

schoolwork and theater

47:07

and music were not,

47:10

they weren't interesting to a lot of

47:12

people in the way that they were to me and

47:14

so I needed to find my

47:16

crew, my crew of fellow listeners

47:19

of The Cure and Morsey in order

47:21

to find any kind of

47:23

sense of stability or safety but

47:25

that is also when I fell

47:27

in love with fantasy and science fiction

47:29

and I have a very clear memory,

47:31

I mean I was utterly miserable

47:34

in the seventh and eighth grade,

47:36

I was completely lost and

47:38

I remember walking

47:41

into our school library and some beautiful

47:43

librarian had set out a table of

47:45

books of

47:47

science fiction and fantasy classics that said

47:49

discover new worlds and boy did I

47:52

need that, I needed to know there

47:54

was more than the world I lived in

47:56

and I fell into those and that's when

47:58

I started writing kind of I

48:00

guess what would now be described as

48:03

self-insert fan fiction about, you know, very,

48:05

you know, beautiful and tough and brainy

48:07

blonde girls, you know, saving the world.

48:09

And, but that was what I needed.

48:11

I needed to know there were worlds

48:13

where being clever and, and smart and

48:15

prepared and giving a damn were more important

48:17

than being cheerful or cute or popular because

48:20

I was none of those things. Well, you

48:22

described writing at that point as like a

48:24

survival mechanism, right? Yes. So

48:27

you're trying to survive junior high? Is

48:29

that what you were trying to survive?

48:31

I mean, people will

48:34

mock teenagers for their sense of

48:36

drama, right? Like, oh, it's not the end

48:38

of the world. It kind of can be.

48:40

Oh, it's a terrible time. There's absolutely

48:43

nothing good about being a teenager. Absolutely

48:46

not. And it is a perilous time.

48:49

There are a lot of ways your

48:51

life can go wrong in those years

48:53

where you can make bad decisions or

48:56

undermine your future or experience heartbreak

48:59

or violence or all kinds of

49:01

things. You are so vulnerable

49:03

at that time. And it's one of the reasons

49:05

my heart, my heart breaks for

49:08

young people on social who are growing

49:10

up with a constant sense of approval and judgment

49:12

that is so much wider than just the, you

49:15

know, the jerks who happen to be in your

49:17

class. Now there's a whole world of jerks

49:19

to judge you or approve of you. So

49:22

I, it was a, just, it

49:24

felt like a deeply perilous time.

49:26

And I was, you know, loneliness

49:28

is a real, it's really

49:30

a kind of poison. And I felt it

49:32

so deeply. And in books, I

49:34

wasn't lonely. I wasn't afraid.

49:38

And if I was afraid, well, then the

49:40

monster would be bested at the end. That

49:42

was very valuable to me. And when

49:45

I meet young people who use

49:47

my books as comfort reads, you know,

49:49

or who say to me, this got me through

49:52

my ninth grade year. I just

49:55

think that is the greatest compliment

49:58

I can receive as an author. If you

50:00

can escape for a while in one of

50:02

my books, that is a gift to

50:04

me to hear that. So was reading and

50:06

writing kind of magical to you? Oh,

50:09

very much so. I mean, I would ditch

50:12

class to go to the library. That's the

50:14

kind of kid I was, to just fall

50:16

into fiction for a little bit, to discover

50:18

a book on the shelves or to just

50:20

sit there writing long hands. You

50:22

know, what were really dreadful, you know,

50:25

dreadful stories, but they

50:27

were where I was strong and

50:29

brave and beautiful. And I had

50:31

friends. I

50:33

was creating my own reality in those moments.

50:35

And it was very powerful. It was a

50:38

very powerful refuge. Clothing

50:40

for a teen can be like a kind

50:42

of armor. Your clothing can feel

50:44

protective. And maybe even more

50:46

so if you're a self-described goth kid.

50:50

Did you have clothes like that that were like your

50:52

armor? I definitely

50:54

did. You know, we didn't really have Hot

50:56

Topic at the time, but I

50:59

was or not one near me, but that

51:01

was definitely my aesthetic. We

51:03

would go to Melrose every weekend. And I

51:05

was a nerd though, still. You know, I

51:07

was nervous

51:10

about things like cutting my hair. And,

51:12

you know, I found

51:15

punk boys very, very entrancing, but

51:17

also terrifying. So

51:20

I wasn't the kind of kid who was going out

51:22

to clubs and was

51:24

living that life, but I wanted

51:26

desperately to be. And then when

51:28

I went to college, my

51:31

mom actually called it my preppy

51:33

drag phase because I completely transformed

51:35

myself into someone else because I

51:37

was still trying to figure out

51:39

kind of how to live in

51:41

the world. And for a while

51:43

it was, you know, J. Crew sweaters and white-collared shirts.

51:47

I think everyone goes through those stages, don't they?

51:50

I think we have to. And one of

51:54

the greatest gifts aging has given

51:56

me is that now I actually dress a lot like

51:58

I did when I was... I can

52:02

just afford nicer black garments and

52:04

more copious amounts of jewelry from

52:07

blood milk because I now

52:09

have found my way back to the

52:11

person that I was before the

52:13

world kind of kicked

52:16

my individuality out of me. Well,

52:20

Leigh Bardugo, thanks so much for coming on Fresh Air.

52:23

Thank you for having me. This is great. Leigh

52:26

Bardugo spoke with Fresh Air producer

52:28

Sam Brigger. Bardugo's new novel is

52:30

called The Familiar. Fresh

52:46

Air Weekend is produced by Theresa

52:48

Madden. Fresh Air's executive producer is

52:50

Danny Miller. Our technical director

52:52

and engineer is Audrey Benson. Their

52:54

interviews and reviews are produced and

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edited by Amy Salet, Phyllis Myers,

52:59

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53:01

Brigger, Lauren Krenzel, Thea Chaloner, Susan

53:03

Yakundi, and Joel Wolfram. Our

53:06

digital media producer is Molly Seavey

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