0:02

Take it impairs. Book at the Day. I'm

0:04

Andrew Limbaugh. it his mother's week on the pod.

0:06

And on top of everything mothers have

0:09

to do, there's one aspect of parenting

0:11

that seems particularly rough dealing. With schools

0:13

you know, going to the meetings and

0:15

the plan and committees and all that,

0:17

it seems pretty gnarly dealing with other

0:19

parents in these heated battles over school

0:21

policy that can be proxy bows for

0:23

been on race, class, sex, all the

0:25

is and is that l us that's

0:27

the sitting of name a Casters acclaimed

0:29

novel what's Mine is Yours which is

0:32

out now in paperback. costs are spoke

0:34

with former and pure host or to

0:36

Cornish when the book first came out

0:38

and they got to talking about one

0:40

character a white woman who opposes busing

0:42

black kids. Into the predominantly white

0:44

school. And it leads into this interesting.

0:46

Discussion of what did even means to

0:48

care about your characters even if you

0:51

don't like them that much. That's.

0:53

Ahead. This. Message comes

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At. The center of name a casters. New

1:31

novel it's called what's Mine and

1:33

yours are to determined and difficult

1:35

mother's. Equal. And opposite forces

1:37

There's Jade, a woman who is

1:40

trying to figure out how to

1:42

pursue her own ambitions while also

1:44

taking care of a child on

1:46

her own and Lazy May, a

1:48

woman who is struggling financially and

1:50

trying to secure a future for

1:52

her girls that she was unable

1:54

to secure for herself and their

1:56

paths cross at a high school

1:58

auditorium in North Care. In fact,

2:00

at a community meeting about a

2:02

new integration program, one that will bring

2:05

students from the largely black east side

2:07

of town to the largely white high

2:09

school on the west side. Jade,

2:12

from that east side, is fighting to get

2:14

her son G into the school. Lacey

2:16

Mae and her daughters live on the

2:18

west side, and she's spearheading a campaign to

2:20

keep the new students out. The

2:23

two family stories wind together over

2:25

decades, each of them fighting

2:28

to overcome shattering loss. I think

2:30

that that results in

2:32

a kind of toughness that's meant

2:34

to be a survival strategy for

2:37

the children when both families are dealing

2:40

with grief that feels so

2:42

large that it could

2:44

swallow them up. Naima Koster told me she

2:46

wanted to explore what happens when you put a

2:48

lid on that grief, the ways it can still

2:50

shape your life like it does for Jade's

2:52

son G. G, as

2:55

we've mentioned, has a loss early

2:57

in his life, and it's

2:59

something that he's gathered that he's

3:01

not supposed to speak about. I

3:04

was thinking about the way that people

3:07

of color are expected to be exceptional

3:09

in largely white spaces. Exceptional

3:12

not only in terms of the task at hand,

3:14

like being good at school or standing out in

3:16

the workplace, but also being

3:18

exceptional in terms of having a

3:21

biography or family story that

3:23

feels neat or virtuous. And

3:26

G doesn't fit that description. He's

3:28

got a family history that he

3:30

believes is wrong. And so

3:32

that gives him a lot of

3:35

feelings of self-doubt, of

3:37

guilt that he has to find ways of

3:40

working through. He is one of the

3:42

kids in a school play. It's a

3:44

Shakespeare play, Measure for Measure. And

3:46

he plays the character of Claudio, who's a

3:48

prisoner through most of the play. And you

3:51

write that he's fit for the part because

3:53

the key is, quote, quietly transmitting endurance and

3:55

fear, which is a

3:58

combination of words that surprise me. and

4:00

then felt very familiar. Like

4:03

you said, that it's virtuous instead of something that

4:06

actually comes from trauma. Yeah,

4:08

like sort of being able to

4:10

persist through difficult circumstance with some

4:12

kind of composure or poise

4:14

without thinking about like, well, what's the

4:17

underside of that? And where did those

4:19

feelings go? How do they show up? How

4:21

do they play out in relationships? The

4:24

other pair of characters that is important

4:27

to this book are their parents, their

4:29

mothers specifically, the mother

4:32

of one of the girls, Lacey May.

4:35

This is a portrait of a woman who becomes

4:37

that person who stands up

4:39

at some school council meeting or

4:41

school committee meeting, really

4:44

rages against the idea of integration

4:47

style policies. And

4:49

this is an interesting person, I think, to work

4:51

backwards from, right? To try and figure out how

4:53

does this person get to that point?

4:56

Mm-hmm, I think Lacey

4:58

May is certainly a kind of figure

5:00

that I've encountered in my life. And

5:03

she's a woman who feels that she

5:05

has thwarted potential and that

5:07

she perhaps could have accomplished more in

5:10

life, but she was consumed with the

5:12

business of survival, with being a wife

5:14

and a mother. And so she opposes

5:17

the integration in part because she wants

5:19

to hoard the opportunity and keep it

5:21

for her girls. I'll

5:23

also say that Lacey May

5:25

holds racist ideas. It's not that

5:28

she stumbles her way into a

5:30

racist position. Do you like this

5:32

character? That's a great

5:34

question. I'll

5:36

say that I understand

5:39

her. And I will

5:41

also say that I have tenderness

5:44

for parts of her. She's a

5:46

lonely and alienated character. And I

5:48

feel for her in those respects.

5:50

Would I want Lacey May as my

5:53

in-law or my friend or

5:55

on the PTA with me? Absolutely not. And I

5:58

think that this is one of the things. Dixon

6:00

can do right, they can give us

6:02

so a window into the battles that

6:05

each person is waging are facing, but

6:07

it doesn't mean that. Condone

6:09

her actions, or or even

6:11

interested in redeeming her. I

6:13

should say we're talking about

6:15

this. And. Slightly academic terms because

6:18

they don't want to give away too

6:20

much, but it's also just beautiful

6:22

writing and made me feel for all

6:24

these characters almost immediately, which is

6:26

painful because they're going through a lot

6:29

of trauma. I'm just just there

6:31

sad and i was like wasn't any would

6:33

be happy and his books as. A

6:36

How do you live with characters like that?

6:39

I. Don't think I have a lot

6:41

of distance when I'm working on it.

6:43

I feel very immerse and I'm not

6:46

interested in making things easier for my

6:48

characters, which may sound harsh to say,

6:50

but I think that that's partially because

6:52

life can be really hard and brutal

6:55

and I'm interested in sex and that.

6:57

Testifies to that reality, but I

7:00

do think about the moments of

7:02

tenderness and release that they get

7:04

am which don't cancel out. All

7:07

of the hard set. That's the nice thing. To

7:09

here in this moment after the last

7:12

twelve months, I don't know how how

7:14

you spend them had you been doing

7:16

work on this book still at the.

7:18

End of last year I was

7:20

working on this book. At the beginning

7:23

of the pandemic, I was also

7:25

taking care of my daughter who

7:27

at the time was under a year

7:29

olds and we lost child care.

7:31

It was really hard, an exhausting

7:33

and lonely and full of fear. I

7:35

hear that one of the characters.

7:37

In the book is talking about having

7:39

a new baby yeah and someone asked

7:42

her how it is and vs ahead

7:44

of herself is it's terrible accident you

7:46

and Fairchild is probably the same age.

7:48

I also had a baby the start

7:50

of the pandemic and she also ends

7:52

that phrase by saying and and this

7:54

child is perfect. Yes, and that line

7:57

is actually one that I put in after

7:59

having the. The because I was

8:01

a lie yeah, I've drafted the

8:03

book and when I was pregnant

8:05

and so you know that scene

8:07

was just the character glowing and

8:09

happy and effortlessly breastfeeding in the

8:11

corner. And then after actually having

8:13

had a child and going through

8:16

the post partum period I said

8:18

after advise this. And.

8:20

That when you added the bags under her eyes

8:22

am fat as well and I think they're too

8:24

many troops in chapter. And

8:27

I didn't realize I'd been idealizing

8:29

the experience that in revision as

8:31

a new Mom, I could see

8:33

that I had. Did you have

8:35

a temptation to dip further into

8:37

the pandemic writing wise? Lol. I'll

8:39

I'll be straight with you. Originally,

8:41

the book was supposed to end

8:43

months later in August of Twenty

8:45

Twenty, so I had to do

8:47

some reworking of the chronology and

8:49

timeline of the book and changed

8:51

the weather am just the sort

8:54

of. Avoid. thinking.

8:56

About the pandemic because I didn't have the space

8:58

to do that. Also, your characters. Needed a

9:00

break in length. Of

9:03

time ago Vid above all that.

9:05

If they knew the little joy and

9:08

rest before. Gearing up for for

9:10

Cohen. I am

9:12

a pastor or new novel is what's mine

9:14

and yours. things you for talking about it

9:16

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