The Spine of America with Ashton Lattimore

[00:00:00] Having finished the story and putting it out into the world, it really does feel like I've

[00:00:03] arrived somewhere.

[00:00:04] It feels like my whole self is integrated in a way that it wasn't.

[00:00:11] Like I've pulled the pieces of me that I've always known were there into a whole kind

[00:00:15] of creation.

[00:00:16] What's good?

[00:00:17] I'm Nikesha Elise Williams and this is Black and Published, bringing you the journeys

[00:00:23] of writers, poets, playwrights, and storytellers of all kinds.

[00:00:28] Today's guest is Ashton Latimore, author of the historical novel All We Were Promised.

[00:00:36] The novel follows three young Black women in 19th century Philadelphia.

[00:00:40] One was born free, one is enslaved, and the third is free-ish.

[00:00:46] She self-emancipated with her father, who's maintaining their liberation by passing for

[00:00:51] white.

[00:00:52] As much as you can align yourself with whiteness, it will not bring you safety.

[00:00:57] If it is not yours to claim, no matter how light-skinned you may be or how much you

[00:01:03] try to pass, there is not safety to be found there when there is actually safety and care

[00:01:09] and community to be found in Blackness.

[00:01:12] Ashton's community has always been among readers and writers, even though like many

[00:01:17] bookish Black children, she dabbled as a lawyer before she returned to writing.

[00:01:23] The Michelle Obama moment she had that led her to change her life and pursue her passion.

[00:01:29] Plus, how Les Miserables inspired the plot of her novel.

[00:01:33] And the hidden pieces of history Ashton hopes to uncover to help America rediscover

[00:01:39] its true self.

[00:01:42] That and more is next when Black and Published continues.

[00:01:51] Ashton, when did you know that you were a writer?

[00:01:55] I would say the year that my parents got us our desktop computer.

[00:02:02] I think I was maybe nine or 10.

[00:02:05] So I was in fourth or fifth grade and as soon as we got it and it had this software

[00:02:10] WordPerfect, I don't know if regular word was.

[00:02:13] Whoa!

[00:02:14] That's exactly right.

[00:02:16] Yeah, I'm not young.

[00:02:18] So we had WordPerfect and one of the first things I remember doing is like realizing

[00:02:25] I could sit down and just start typing out stories.

[00:02:27] I had always been a reader.

[00:02:29] I don't have any siblings, so it was mostly just me and my books, me and the encyclopedias

[00:02:33] and when I started to have the chance to tell my own little stories, I was off

[00:02:37] and running and typing up little short stories.

[00:02:39] Science fiction, I think they were at the time and presenting them to my fifth grade

[00:02:43] teacher who was very encouraging, which was helpful.

[00:02:46] So then how did that urge to write at such a young age on that first desktop computer

[00:02:54] carry you to where you are now in having your debut novel?

[00:02:58] I think I kept that urge with me and it just started to take different forms the whole time

[00:03:04] that I was growing up.

[00:03:05] I was writing short stories when I was in elementary school and I think in middle

[00:03:10] school and high school is when I actually turned to poetry.

[00:03:13] I can see that I was not very good, but you know, I worked on the literary magazine

[00:03:18] with other friends in high school.

[00:03:20] So that was kind of an outlet for me there.

[00:03:23] And then in college is when I found journalism and that's really mostly been my outlet

[00:03:28] for writing for a long time.

[00:03:30] For those years, I was in college and afterwards doing journalism and eventually

[00:03:33] going to law school.

[00:03:35] I think I started to believe I was a good writer.

[00:03:38] I could make an argument.

[00:03:39] I could frame a piece, but that I wasn't a creative person.

[00:03:43] So it really wasn't until this novel, this idea for the story came to me that I started

[00:03:50] to think I could actually kind of take the writing in a different direction.

[00:03:54] Why didn't you think you were a creative person?

[00:03:57] I don't know.

[00:03:58] I think I had this idea of a creative as, you know, like an artist and somebody who

[00:04:07] has wild flights of fancy and imagination and this drive to create.

[00:04:13] And I think because I was channeling that drive into journalism, I was writing op-eds

[00:04:18] and things like that.

[00:04:19] You know, I was like, okay, this is not a creative thing for me.

[00:04:22] This is just me using my brain, making an argument.

[00:04:25] And that's kind of the way that I use writing as a tool.

[00:04:28] I think I had this idea of sort of a dichotomy that's probably false of kind

[00:04:32] of creative people and like intellectual people.

[00:04:36] Not that I necessarily thought I was super intellectual, but just that I wasn't like

[00:04:39] one of those special gifted creatives that has stories in their heart and wants to tell them.

[00:04:45] So I'll just kind of stay over here in my little box with my kind of straightforward

[00:04:49] writing and leave it at that.

[00:04:51] So then when did that shift for you to begin writing what would become,

[00:04:58] I'm assuming is your first like for Rafe creatively into all we were promised?

[00:05:03] It was over the course of about a year.

[00:05:05] So I had gone to journalism school and then went to law school.

[00:05:09] Like most people who are strong writers and strong readers,

[00:05:11] people said, oh, you should go to law school.

[00:05:13] It's like a nice safe career path, much safer than journalism.

[00:05:17] And, you know, you'll be kind of set up.

[00:05:18] More money.

[00:05:19] Yep. More money. Way more money.

[00:05:21] Most careers are more money than journalism, I think.

[00:05:24] But so I had kind of taken myself there and I had been in law practice for about three or four

[00:05:30] years. And I came to a point slowly shortly after I had my son, my first child, and

[00:05:37] realizing I was spending all these hours away from him during the day doing something that I

[00:05:42] did not like.

[00:05:43] I did not like it.

[00:05:44] And there was there was just this kind of moment of reckoning I had with myself

[00:05:48] where I simply admitted I don't like this.

[00:05:51] I want to do something else.

[00:05:53] And at that moment, I said, OK, I've always been a writer.

[00:05:57] I need to just get back to actually what I know how to do and what I like to do.

[00:06:01] I'm going to go back to journalism.

[00:06:03] So I started the process of kind of transitioning my career away from law

[00:06:07] back into journalism.

[00:06:08] And in the midst of that process, while I was working at the University of Pennsylvania

[00:06:12] at their law school, but in the communications department, I was listening to music.

[00:06:17] I was listening to show tunes and this story idea came to me about a father who is on the

[00:06:23] run from something and his daughter who is kind of being dragged along for the ride

[00:06:27] and being confined because of his paranoia, which is basically the part of the plot of

[00:06:32] Les Miserables.

[00:06:33] So what I was listening to and I was just struck with this idea of writing

[00:06:37] writing a story.

[00:06:38] So I texted my best friend at the time and I said, I've got this crazy idea.

[00:06:43] You know, what should I do?

[00:06:44] She's like, oh, write a novel.

[00:06:46] I was like, oh, OK.

[00:06:48] Sure.

[00:06:48] Why not?

[00:06:49] Best friends are great for that.

[00:06:50] Yeah.

[00:06:51] No, they're wonderful.

[00:06:53] And it happened to be the end of October.

[00:06:55] It was maybe like the third week of October when that happened.

[00:06:58] And I saw something maybe come across my feed about National Novel Writing Month.

[00:07:01] So I was like, you know what, let me go ahead and just dive into it.

[00:07:05] I've always been a reader of historical fiction.

[00:07:07] So I always assumed if I ever wrote a book, that's what it would be.

[00:07:11] So I said, I'll just make this my little historical fiction story.

[00:07:13] I'll give it a shot.

[00:07:14] And so I did National Novel Writing Month.

[00:07:16] And at the end of it, I came out with 50,000 words.

[00:07:18] So I won National Novel Writing Month as one does.

[00:07:22] And there was something there.

[00:07:24] There really was kind of a kernel of a story.

[00:07:27] And once I was in it, it just held me and wouldn't let go of me.

[00:07:32] And this idea of finishing it and turning it into something,

[00:07:36] it carried me through the next, gosh, three, four years of writing it

[00:07:41] and the time between work and dealing with the kids and everything else.

[00:07:45] So you talking about realizing that you don't even like your job

[00:07:48] reminds me of the point in Michelle Obama's first memoir, Becoming,

[00:07:53] where she was like, you know what, I don't like this.

[00:07:57] But what did it feel like in your body to be held by a story

[00:08:01] at a time where you were purposely putting your life in flux

[00:08:06] by leaving one career and going after another?

[00:08:09] It felt like walking towards a light.

[00:08:12] It felt like I was headed towards something.

[00:08:17] I was headed towards a different kind of life,

[00:08:19] headed towards a different kind of self.

[00:08:22] It felt like as I was finding the story,

[00:08:25] this is just what I'm supposed to be doing.

[00:08:28] And you know, I'm doing whatever I'm doing about my day job.

[00:08:30] I'm making this career transition that this is the thing

[00:08:33] that's going to carry me from this place in my life,

[00:08:35] this place in my career to the next phase of wherever I'm going.

[00:08:39] And now having finished the story and kind of putting it out into the world,

[00:08:43] it really does feel like I've arrived somewhere.

[00:08:45] Ooh.

[00:08:46] It feels like my whole self is integrated in a way that it wasn't

[00:08:51] when I was kind of all apart trying to do law

[00:08:55] and secretly kind of be a writer and be disgruntled about not doing it.

[00:09:00] It really feels like I've pulled the pieces of me

[00:09:03] that I've always known were there into a whole kind of creation.

[00:09:07] That's a lot of pressure to put on, you know,

[00:09:10] on one project, on the act of writing.

[00:09:13] But I feel like I've come back to myself in a way.

[00:09:15] And I'm honestly very proud because that moment

[00:09:19] Michelle Obama had that I had, that's terrifying to sit there and say,

[00:09:23] I am six figures in debt from this law degree.

[00:09:27] I have poured all these years into doing this and I don't like it.

[00:09:31] I can't do it anymore.

[00:09:33] That was a big, tough step.

[00:09:36] But in retrospect, it was one that was worth taking.

[00:09:39] Did you ever get over the fear or have you only now gotten over the fear

[00:09:43] because it's happened for you?

[00:09:45] I think I was able to overcome it because I could feel that I had something

[00:09:48] with this story.

[00:09:49] I don't know when a project is working,

[00:09:51] when it is like something, when there's something there,

[00:09:53] you can kind of feel it.

[00:09:55] And this is probably terribly delusional,

[00:09:58] but I don't think there was ever really a moment when I was like,

[00:10:01] I'm going to write this whole thing and nobody's going to publish it.

[00:10:04] I pretty much assumed this is going to work out.

[00:10:08] I don't know if that is just a belief in myself

[00:10:10] or just extreme hopefulness or what it was,

[00:10:12] but I could feel that there was something there

[00:10:15] that was worth being put out into the world.

[00:10:17] And so I didn't worry so much about if.

[00:10:20] It felt like more of a when question.

[00:10:22] When and how?

[00:10:24] And I think I'm still kind of feeling out the how,

[00:10:27] what does life look like as an author and a journalist

[00:10:30] and what all that, how that all fits together.

[00:10:32] But there was never a moment where I felt like I was kind of off

[00:10:36] on a romp that might not lead to anything.

[00:10:39] I love the confidence.

[00:10:40] And I don't know if it's debut confidence

[00:10:43] or if some would call it naivety,

[00:10:44] but I'm calling it confidence and I'm going to go with that.

[00:10:48] So please tell us the when and how of the publishing journey.

[00:10:51] How long did it take you to finish the draft and then go from there?

[00:10:55] Sure.

[00:10:56] So I started this in November of 2018.

[00:10:59] So I was writing, writing, writing up until 20, 2021.

[00:11:04] And that's when I had enough like a full draft

[00:11:08] to apply to the revisions workshop,

[00:11:11] the Black Creatives Revisions Workshop,

[00:11:12] which is a program that We Need Diverse Books

[00:11:14] was putting on that year.

[00:11:16] So I applied to that and I got into the revisions workshop,

[00:11:18] which was wonderful because we had authors

[00:11:21] who would come and talk to us about the revision process

[00:11:23] and how they each approached it.

[00:11:25] And we spent all that time revising our books,

[00:11:28] working with the developmental editor,

[00:11:29] and also getting some kind of footing in the business,

[00:11:32] talking to marketing and publicity people

[00:11:34] who were brought in to speak to us,

[00:11:36] agents and things like that.

[00:11:38] So the revisions workshop, I think it was a six-month program.

[00:11:41] So by the end of 2021, I had a fully revised draft

[00:11:46] that I was able to take out and start querying agents.

[00:11:49] So I think that was probably like October, November of 2021.

[00:11:53] So I started querying agents.

[00:11:55] Six weeks later, I got an offer from my wonderful agent,

[00:11:58] Jamie Carr, the book group, and I signed with her.

[00:12:02] We did a couple more revisions on the book.

[00:12:04] So between kind of January and May

[00:12:07] is when we took the book out on submission.

[00:12:09] And so we went out, I think it was maybe May 20th.

[00:12:14] And I had an offer 10 days later.

[00:12:17] So I had kind of a unicorn querying experience

[00:12:21] and submission experience.

[00:12:23] I fully recognize that and I'm incredibly grateful for it.

[00:12:26] But it was quick once we put the book out there,

[00:12:28] there was a fair bit of interest and excitement,

[00:12:31] I think about the story.

[00:12:32] So that's what it looked like.

[00:12:34] And that was in May of 2022.

[00:12:35] And so it's about two years later

[00:12:37] that the book will be out into the world.

[00:12:39] Six months in a workshop, six weeks to get an agent,

[00:12:43] 10 days to get the deal.

[00:12:47] Yeah.

[00:12:48] It all worked out.

[00:12:50] It worked out.

[00:12:51] It worked out.

[00:12:52] I think that's been, you know, it's been dangerous, right?

[00:12:55] Because my little delusional confidence bubble

[00:12:57] hasn't been popped quite yet.

[00:13:00] Because I've been so fortunate to have things go

[00:13:03] so quickly for me, which I'm very grateful for.

[00:13:06] But, you know, I just, I'm grateful for all the excitement,

[00:13:11] I think, that I've seen on the journey so far.

[00:13:14] And hopefully, you know, it translates to readers,

[00:13:16] but it did feel like, you know, it felt like very validating

[00:13:20] is what it felt like.

[00:13:21] I put all these years into this.

[00:13:23] I shifted my career and I was right.

[00:13:27] Yeah, because we didn't really talk about

[00:13:29] the three years that you spent writing the novel,

[00:13:32] including the years of peak pandemic

[00:13:35] when you're having children at home.

[00:13:36] Yep.

[00:13:37] Yep.

[00:13:38] Those were some tough years, peak pandemic.

[00:13:42] And I also had my second child in 2019.

[00:13:45] So it was a very, very rough balance.

[00:13:48] My husband and I moved in with his parents

[00:13:51] for about eight months of the pandemic, actually.

[00:13:53] And they helped us watch the kids while we were working.

[00:13:56] By that point, I had moved to my current job

[00:13:58] where I run a news outlet, a nonprofit news outlet, Prism.

[00:14:02] And I was there, so the job was remote.

[00:14:04] So I was already kind of in that mode.

[00:14:06] But balancing that and a brand new baby and a pandemic

[00:14:09] and then the two and a half, three-year-old, my older son.

[00:14:12] A toddler?

[00:14:14] Yeah, a toddler.

[00:14:15] And now I live with my husband's parents.

[00:14:17] It was a lot.

[00:14:20] It was a lot.

[00:14:23] Grateful for them every day.

[00:14:24] Wonderful.

[00:14:24] I love them.

[00:14:25] And they frankly saved us during the pandemic

[00:14:28] and honestly made it possible for me to continue writing.

[00:14:31] But it was very much like pockets of stolen time, I think.

[00:14:36] I learned to write in 10-minute sprints.

[00:14:40] If I found 10 minutes during the workday

[00:14:42] or found 10 minutes in the evenings,

[00:14:44] and it would just be 10 minutes.

[00:14:46] I'm just going to write.

[00:14:46] I'm not going to edit anything.

[00:14:47] I'm not going to look back.

[00:14:49] And that would get me 300, 400 words maybe a day.

[00:14:53] But it adds up.

[00:14:54] And then part of what really took the most time,

[00:14:57] I think, during that process was when I realized

[00:15:00] that my original kind of vision

[00:15:01] of who the point-of-view characters were in the novel

[00:15:04] was wrong.

[00:15:05] And I needed to shift it.

[00:15:07] Originally, this was a story that went back and forth

[00:15:10] between Charlotte and James, her father.

[00:15:12] But as these other women characters,

[00:15:15] Nell and Evie, asserted themselves,

[00:15:17] I said, wait a minute.

[00:15:18] This is their story.

[00:15:19] He has to go back to the side.

[00:15:22] He can live in Charlotte's chapters.

[00:15:24] And I need to give both of these additional women

[00:15:27] their due and their space

[00:15:28] to kind of tell their stories as well.

[00:15:30] So filling all that out after I had written

[00:15:34] probably 100,000 words of Charlotte and James

[00:15:37] with like at least 40, 50 of it being him,

[00:15:41] that took some time.

[00:15:42] But it felt like the right call when I made that shift

[00:15:45] and the story really came into focus,

[00:15:47] I think, when I did that.

[00:15:48] Been there, done all of that.

[00:15:50] I completely understand.

[00:15:55] So we're here.

[00:15:56] Why don't you go ahead and read a little something

[00:15:58] from All We Were Promised

[00:15:59] and then we can get into this novel.

[00:16:02] Okay.

[00:16:03] I think I'm just going to read from the first page.

[00:16:06] Thank you, because that's where my first question is.

[00:16:08] Okay.

[00:16:11] All We Were Promised by Ashton Latimore

[00:16:14] is set in Philadelphia between 1837 and 1838

[00:16:18] and follows three young Black women.

[00:16:21] Nell, who was born free

[00:16:23] and is heavily involved in the abolitionist movement.

[00:16:26] Evie, who is enslaved

[00:16:27] and brought to the city by her owner.

[00:16:30] And Charlotte, who escaped with her father James

[00:16:32] from the same plantation

[00:16:34] where they had once lived with Evie.

[00:16:37] Everybody has a secret that they're keeping

[00:16:38] in the name of safety,

[00:16:40] but they'll have to learn to lean on one another

[00:16:42] if they want to get or stay free.

[00:16:46] Here's Ashton.

[00:16:47] All right.

[00:16:49] Philadelphia, 1837.

[00:16:51] The city of Philadelphia wasn't what it claimed to be,

[00:16:54] but after four years living here with her father,

[00:16:56] Charlotte knew there was a lot of that going around.

[00:16:59] It was unseasonably warm that November morning

[00:17:01] in Washington Square Park,

[00:17:02] enough to leave Charlotte and her friend Nell

[00:17:04] sweating under their dresses,

[00:17:05] even as amber and gold leaves crunched beneath their feet.

[00:17:08] In Philadelphia, a stray hot day was as good as summer

[00:17:11] when folks would gather at parks and carousels

[00:17:14] and crowd onto cobblestone streets in messy,

[00:17:16] loud chalking clumps that circled

[00:17:18] and melted into one another.

[00:17:19] But warm weather also meant rioting season

[00:17:22] when all of the city's resentments

[00:17:23] between Black and White, freedmen and immigrant,

[00:17:25] working class and the struggling poor whirled over.

[00:17:28] Though the near holy parchment at Independence Hall

[00:17:31] claimed all men were equal,

[00:17:32] the words told only half the story.

[00:17:34] In the heat, the city's people rarely shied

[00:17:36] from acting out the rest.

[00:17:38] And in the cooler months after all the ruckus,

[00:17:40] the city would hush and turn itself inward,

[00:17:42] with everyone huddled into stately brick townhouses

[00:17:44] and tumbled down back alley tenements alike

[00:17:47] as if embarrassed by all the thrashing and carrying on.

[00:17:50] Charlotte had seen the same cycle play out

[00:17:52] for four years going,

[00:17:53] and that morning she knew that all conditions

[00:17:54] were ripe for a mob scene.

[00:17:56] Still, as she and Nell sat together fanning themselves,

[00:17:59] a few rose back from the open-air wooden stage

[00:18:01] waiting for Mr. Robert Purvis's speech to start.

[00:18:03] She was lulled into a full sense of safety.

[00:18:06] Okay, so we're gonna start right there where you read.

[00:18:10] Yes.

[00:18:12] But warm weather also meant rioting season.

[00:18:15] And then you end that paragraph with,

[00:18:19] and in the cooler months after all the ruckus,

[00:18:21] the city would hush and turn itself inward,

[00:18:22] with everyone huddled into stately brick townhouses

[00:18:25] and tumbled down back alley tenements alike

[00:18:27] as if embarrassed by all the thrashing and carrying on.

[00:18:30] Since you were writing during the pandemic in 2020,

[00:18:33] when all of the things were happening with Black Lives Matter,

[00:18:36] was that also in your mind?

[00:18:38] Because I was like, it's the same.

[00:18:41] Yes, yeah.

[00:18:42] There was so much in here that just came from me being an adult

[00:18:49] and having one understanding of how politics worked in this country.

[00:18:53] And then suddenly there are mobs.

[00:18:55] And of course, I don't mean the Black Lives Matter protesters,

[00:18:58] but in 2017, I remember Charlottesville, what happened there.

[00:19:02] Tiki torch bearing actual racist mob.

[00:19:06] And then as I'm in the midst of writing this,

[00:19:08] of course there are the Black Lives Matter up uprising.

[00:19:11] And then in January 2021, we see it again on January 6th.

[00:19:15] So there were absolutely moments in this novel

[00:19:17] where I'm writing a mob scene, I'm writing a riot.

[00:19:20] And I would go to Google and say, you know what?

[00:19:22] Let me pull up a picture from Charlottesville

[00:19:24] so I can imagine what these people's faces looked like

[00:19:27] when they were doing the exact same thing 200 years ago.

[00:19:31] Absolutely.

[00:19:32] So there's that one.

[00:19:33] But then you set the book in Philadelphia

[00:19:37] and you have this free Black population,

[00:19:41] you have the point where enslaved people

[00:19:45] are running to Philadelphia for freedom.

[00:19:47] And the balance of that and how there's both a race and a class divide,

[00:19:54] and then also what's happening with the white people

[00:19:56] in Philadelphia as well.

[00:19:58] And I was like, the whole book set in 1837

[00:20:02] is a microcosm of America in 2024 now.

[00:20:07] Yep.

[00:20:08] Also intentional.

[00:20:10] Also very, very intentional.

[00:20:12] I look at this book in part as sort of a chronicle

[00:20:14] of a social movement, the abolitionist movement,

[00:20:17] where you see these coalitions coming together

[00:20:19] and also starting to break down.

[00:20:21] It's a multiracial city, much like the United States.

[00:20:23] It's a multiracial democracy.

[00:20:25] And then particularly in the Philadelphia Women's Anti-Slavery Society,

[00:20:29] you see this a little bit shaky coalition

[00:20:32] between white women abolitionists and Black women abolitionists.

[00:20:35] And the Black folks are like, hey,

[00:20:37] we need to actually get out into the streets,

[00:20:39] help these people do something very tangible to free folks.

[00:20:43] And the white women abolitionists are saying, well, yes,

[00:20:47] but what if we mostly raised money

[00:20:49] and did kind of political speeches?

[00:20:51] And the subtext is that these things are helping them

[00:20:54] raise their profile in the abolitionist movement

[00:20:56] because a lot of these women will eventually go on

[00:20:58] to see the early feminist movement

[00:21:00] and the suffragist movement in the late 19th century.

[00:21:03] So you see folks all good intentioned,

[00:21:06] all well-intentioned trying to work with one another.

[00:21:09] But one set of people has a much greater sense of urgency

[00:21:13] about who this work is for and how quickly it needs to happen.

[00:21:17] And I think we see a lot of that in conversations

[00:21:20] and social movements today, which I get to work around

[00:21:24] quite a bit at Prism because so much of the work

[00:21:26] in the journalism that we do is movement journalism

[00:21:29] chronicling the social movements

[00:21:30] that are happening right now.

[00:21:31] And you can see those same divides,

[00:21:33] some of those same kind of coalitions

[00:21:35] coming together and breaking apart.

[00:21:37] And I just found it really interesting

[00:21:39] to see that 200 years ago,

[00:21:42] we're having some of the same conversations

[00:21:44] about what is actually going to help,

[00:21:47] how involved do I need to be,

[00:21:49] how big of a deal is this,

[00:21:50] how radical is it safe for us to be?

[00:21:53] Are we going to drive people away

[00:21:54] by being too radical in our demands?

[00:21:57] Those same conversations that a lot on the left

[00:21:59] are having now, you see them show up

[00:22:01] in 19th century America in this very different context.

[00:22:04] And so earlier you mentioned that initially

[00:22:07] you wrote the draft where it was a back and forth

[00:22:09] between the main character and her father James

[00:22:12] who have escaped to freedom in Philadelphia.

[00:22:16] James is a very light skinned, passable black man.

[00:22:21] And so you see the tensions in their relationship

[00:22:24] from the onset of the book.

[00:22:26] Why was it important to have that type of dynamic

[00:22:30] between father and daughter

[00:22:33] become more like slave and owner?

[00:22:36] James is, he's a couple of things.

[00:22:40] He's an image of this idea of a passing person

[00:22:43] but the story is not his story.

[00:22:45] So you get to see the impact of passing

[00:22:48] on the family members who kind of get left

[00:22:50] back behind in a way in blackness.

[00:22:52] And I felt like that was an interesting perspective

[00:22:55] to explore but I also kind of wanted to dig into,

[00:23:00] it's sort of a father daughter story

[00:23:02] where fathers generation to generation

[00:23:04] have this idea of what I owe to my children

[00:23:08] is a roof over their heads and to provide for them.

[00:23:11] And I've done that, we're square.

[00:23:14] And I think this is a relationship where you say

[00:23:18] there's something broken here between the two of them

[00:23:21] and the racial difference between the two of them

[00:23:24] kind of underscores it.

[00:23:26] But I think that's kind of what

[00:23:27] that father daughter relationship looked like.

[00:23:29] And James himself is interesting because he shows

[00:23:33] that as much as you can align yourself with whiteness,

[00:23:37] it will not bring you safety.

[00:23:39] If it is not yours to claim,

[00:23:41] no matter how light skinned you may be,

[00:23:44] or how much you try to pass,

[00:23:46] there is not safety to be found there

[00:23:48] when there is actually safety and care

[00:23:51] and community to be found in blackness.

[00:23:54] And there's value on that side of the line

[00:23:57] that he walked away from and suffered for it,

[00:23:59] which I think is important to show.

[00:24:01] Yes.

[00:24:02] And can you tell the story about Freedom Hall,

[00:24:07] which plays a central role in the novel

[00:24:10] and something that really did happen in Philadelphia?

[00:24:13] Absolutely.

[00:24:14] So Pennsylvania Hall was built between 1837 and 1838,

[00:24:18] and it was built by a biracial coalition

[00:24:21] of white and black abolitionists,

[00:24:23] including the Philadelphia Women's Anti-Slavery Society

[00:24:26] that raised a great deal of money

[00:24:28] to help this building go up.

[00:24:29] And the reason that they needed to build

[00:24:31] this meeting hall was that during all these years

[00:24:34] in the 1830s, abolitionists were trying

[00:24:36] to have meetings in other spaces in the city.

[00:24:39] But as kind of the temperature

[00:24:40] of the conversation around slavery went up,

[00:24:43] people were closing their doors to them increasingly.

[00:24:45] So they literally had to build themselves

[00:24:46] a meeting hall because nobody else would let them

[00:24:48] in to talk about this anymore,

[00:24:50] which should have been their first clue,

[00:24:51] maybe this is not going to work out.

[00:24:53] But they build this meeting hall

[00:24:55] and they decide that the week of the grand opening,

[00:24:58] they're going to have this giant

[00:25:00] anti-slavery convention and conference

[00:25:02] where abolitionists from all over the country

[00:25:05] are going to come into Philadelphia

[00:25:06] and they're going to talk it out.

[00:25:08] They're going to have basically a convention

[00:25:10] about their movement, movement strategy

[00:25:12] and tactics and all meet and get to know one another.

[00:25:14] So it's the second week of May in 1838

[00:25:18] and this group of abolitionists,

[00:25:19] they're coming from Boston, New York,

[00:25:21] other cities around the North.

[00:25:22] Black and white are mixed in this environment,

[00:25:25] which is a big no-no at this time.

[00:25:27] They called it amalgamation,

[00:25:28] which is like race mixing black

[00:25:30] and white people hanging out together.

[00:25:31] Basically, it was just very, very frowned upon.

[00:25:34] So people in the city are seeing these black

[00:25:37] and white abolitionists walking in

[00:25:38] and out of the building together,

[00:25:40] brazenly talking to one another

[00:25:42] and enough people start to get riled up about it

[00:25:45] that they put up placards around town

[00:25:47] to say, we need to stop this giant abolitionist meeting

[00:25:49] from happening here.

[00:25:51] This is not appropriate.

[00:25:52] They're not respecting people's property rights.

[00:25:54] That's what slavery enthusiasts would call

[00:25:58] slavery property rights.

[00:25:59] So the placards go up during this conference

[00:26:02] and the conference gets underway

[00:26:04] and they get about three days into it

[00:26:07] because of the placards

[00:26:08] and because people have been getting riled up all week,

[00:26:10] eventually a mob forms outside of Pennsylvania Hall

[00:26:13] and they start tearing the building apart

[00:26:16] and burning it down.

[00:26:17] The fire department comes

[00:26:19] and starts spraying the buildings

[00:26:20] next to Pennsylvania Hall, not the hall itself,

[00:26:23] so that the building can burn,

[00:26:25] but it just won't catch

[00:26:27] and burn down any of the other buildings around.

[00:26:29] So this to me was shocking when I learned about it.

[00:26:33] It seemed crazy that I had gotten all the way through

[00:26:37] years of American history in college, in high school,

[00:26:40] and I'd never heard of this incident before.

[00:26:42] So I just felt like I wanted to bring it to light

[00:26:45] if possible because it seemed really significant

[00:26:47] for what the world was like at that moment

[00:26:49] and really shifted the way I thought about Philadelphia

[00:26:53] before the Civil War.

[00:26:54] So in telling the story of Pennsylvania Hall

[00:26:58] and how it went up and came down

[00:27:02] as immediately after it opened,

[00:27:05] it's a bookend in your novel

[00:27:07] where your novel starts with a riot,

[00:27:10] it ends with a riot,

[00:27:12] which goes back to the line

[00:27:13] that we talked about in the very beginning,

[00:27:14] but then it also reminds me of

[00:27:16] the United States in the moment that we're in right now

[00:27:19] and the nation started with a riot

[00:27:22] that became a rebellion that we call a revolution.

[00:27:26] And although we're not quite at the end of America,

[00:27:29] well, not final yet.

[00:27:35] But I feel like a lot of the people

[00:27:37] on Al Gore's internet have kind of called us

[00:27:40] and said, you know what?

[00:27:41] It's the end of America.

[00:27:42] And so we're kind of just watching it play out,

[00:27:44] which will probably end in some type of riot

[00:27:47] to something or other.

[00:27:49] What do you make of these parallels

[00:27:53] between this richly layered novel that you created

[00:27:57] on an idea and the problems that we're still having,

[00:28:01] not just politically,

[00:28:03] but also within the race between classes

[00:28:06] and all of these other,

[00:28:08] you talk about building of coalitions

[00:28:10] and then their breakdowns,

[00:28:11] we're in that moment right now.

[00:28:14] It absolutely feels like

[00:28:15] the series finale of America 100%.

[00:28:19] The vibes are not good.

[00:28:20] They're not good.

[00:28:21] And the parallels scare me candidly

[00:28:24] because this is a story of a deeply polarized time

[00:28:28] in American history

[00:28:30] where people are having these deeply entrenched disagreements

[00:28:33] about what it is to be a person,

[00:28:35] what it is to be free,

[00:28:36] what life should even look like here.

[00:28:38] What should people be allowed to do?

[00:28:40] Who should be allowed to consider themselves

[00:28:42] part of our country, our community?

[00:28:44] Coalitions come together.

[00:28:45] They break down,

[00:28:47] but nothing gets solved until a huge bloody conflict

[00:28:52] that culminates in the civil war,

[00:28:54] which is a conflict that didn't actually solve anything,

[00:28:57] solved slavery, kind of.

[00:28:59] And it's all...

[00:29:01] Yeah, right.

[00:29:02] And it solved the question of whether or not

[00:29:04] states can secede from the union,

[00:29:06] maybe for the time being.

[00:29:08] But the stuff that you see after

[00:29:11] that comes after the civil war

[00:29:13] where the North wins the war itself,

[00:29:16] but the South wins the rhetorical kind of war

[00:29:19] and wins with a lot of the legal structures

[00:29:21] that end up staying in place for years and years afterward,

[00:29:25] I don't know.

[00:29:26] I wish I could say I felt more hopeful.

[00:29:30] The only thing I have to offer is I hoped or tried

[00:29:35] to end the story on a hopeful note,

[00:29:38] which is everything has broken down,

[00:29:40] but we're going to keep working and trying anyway,

[00:29:43] because I think that's all you can do.

[00:29:44] Yeah.

[00:29:45] In listening to you speak

[00:29:46] and thinking more and more and more about the book,

[00:29:49] it feels like our history has provided the blueprint

[00:29:52] for our dystopian future.

[00:29:54] And that's really...

[00:29:56] Yeah, that's real.

[00:30:00] When you sit with that, it doesn't feel good.

[00:30:03] But here we are, and yet you do end the novel

[00:30:07] on a hopeful note with these three women,

[00:30:09] Nell, Evie, and Charlotte,

[00:30:12] all heading toward the possibility

[00:30:17] of a brighter future together.

[00:30:20] And it's not lost on me

[00:30:22] that it's three Black women doing the work,

[00:30:25] and again, to bring the moment to now

[00:30:28] where it's often Black women doing the work

[00:30:30] to keep what's left of America together,

[00:30:33] at least for another day.

[00:30:37] Yeah.

[00:30:38] Was that intentional or did it just really happen

[00:30:40] to play out that way because of who you are?

[00:30:43] I think it's because of who I am,

[00:30:44] but it's also very factual.

[00:30:47] You know, Black women were the backbone

[00:30:49] of the abolitionist movement.

[00:30:51] They were the backbone of what ultimately became

[00:30:53] the underground railroad and taken the steps

[00:30:55] to physically free people

[00:30:57] and take them out of slavery

[00:30:58] and not just talk about it,

[00:30:59] but go be about it.

[00:31:01] So to me that felt right,

[00:31:03] that the three of them would be the ones

[00:31:05] who are looking forward and saying,

[00:31:08] we're gonna lock arms

[00:31:09] and we're gonna keep trying to figure this out.

[00:31:12] There are other people with them.

[00:31:13] They have helpers.

[00:31:14] They have some Black men helpers.

[00:31:16] They have some white women helpers,

[00:31:17] but just to see the three of them

[00:31:20] really being the foundations

[00:31:22] for their own liberation

[00:31:23] and the liberation of people who are like them,

[00:31:26] it just felt true to me.

[00:31:29] You say in the backbone,

[00:31:30] another word for backbone is spine.

[00:31:32] Now without a spine, a body cannot stand.

[00:31:35] And as has been said in this election cycle

[00:31:39] and the last election cycle

[00:31:40] and the last election cycle,

[00:31:42] and I'm referring to the presidential election.

[00:31:44] So we're now 12 years into this same kind of rhetoric

[00:31:47] of we're in a fight for the soul of the nation

[00:31:50] or the soul of the country.

[00:31:52] And yet while we have yet to really ascertain

[00:31:55] what the true soul of America is,

[00:31:57] we know that Black women are at spine,

[00:31:59] it's backbone.

[00:32:00] Do you have resentment of that burden

[00:32:03] being placed on Black women

[00:32:05] and then Black women turning it into something

[00:32:07] that is not just ambition,

[00:32:10] but a drive for better,

[00:32:13] if not just for themselves, but for everyone?

[00:32:15] I think there is something really difficult and insidious

[00:32:20] about everyone identifying Black women as strong

[00:32:23] and then using that as a reason to climb onto our backs.

[00:32:25] There is strength here

[00:32:27] because there has had to be strength here

[00:32:30] for all of the things that we have endured.

[00:32:33] But I don't think that's a reason why

[00:32:35] we can't aspire to softer ways of being

[00:32:39] and softer ways of living.

[00:32:41] So having to carry this responsibility,

[00:32:44] and I think often people mistake it for a compliment

[00:32:47] when they say things like,

[00:32:48] oh, listen to Black women,

[00:32:51] follow what the Black women do.

[00:32:53] I mean, yes, but you could also say some things

[00:32:56] for people to listen to.

[00:32:58] Y'all can do some work as well.

[00:33:01] And I think back to something that Toni Morrison said,

[00:33:05] which is that racism and racial injustice

[00:33:09] get framed as this problem.

[00:33:11] For Black people to solve.

[00:33:13] But what it actually is, is a problem

[00:33:16] among the people who are actually racist.

[00:33:19] That's a problem.

[00:33:20] If you can't feel tall unless someone else

[00:33:23] is on their knees,

[00:33:24] then you have a very serious problem

[00:33:26] is what Toni Morrison said.

[00:33:28] So this kind of brings us back to coalition building

[00:33:31] and where the responsibility

[00:33:33] for sorting all of this out actually lies.

[00:33:35] So I think Black women do this work by necessity

[00:33:37] for our own survival

[00:33:38] and the survival of our own communities.

[00:33:41] And we always have,

[00:33:42] but there's no reason why

[00:33:44] we should ever be the only ones kind of out here.

[00:33:47] So now let's talk about the other characters

[00:33:50] in your book because the mistress is insufferable.

[00:33:54] Insufferable, the worst, the absolute worst.

[00:33:58] She is all kinds of insufferable.

[00:34:01] And I didn't know about the loophole

[00:34:06] in the Philadelphia's law that allowed

[00:34:09] enslaved people to become free

[00:34:12] if they had been in the city for six months.

[00:34:14] So then white slave owners and slave holders

[00:34:17] would exploit that by going back and forth.

[00:34:19] And then just as a deadline was coming up,

[00:34:22] send them back to restart the clock

[00:34:24] on their hopeful liberation.

[00:34:26] When you were writing,

[00:34:27] and you have a lot of moments

[00:34:29] where you weave in history like this,

[00:34:32] what was the research process like

[00:34:34] to render this life with these women

[00:34:38] and the racial dynamics and the law?

[00:34:41] What was that process like for you?

[00:34:42] So some of it was legal research,

[00:34:44] just making sure I got really clear

[00:34:46] on what the timeline was for this loophole,

[00:34:49] when it was in effect,

[00:34:50] how it changed over time

[00:34:52] and how it was exploited.

[00:34:53] So my law degree came in handy this one time.

[00:34:57] When I was doing that research,

[00:34:58] I got to read old cases of people

[00:35:01] who sometimes were able to get their freedom

[00:35:03] because the six months had elapsed

[00:35:04] or maybe the court decides that they're not free

[00:35:07] because the months had to be measured

[00:35:09] in calendar months and not phases of the moon

[00:35:11] and like crazy stuff like that.

[00:35:13] But just reading through kind of old documents.

[00:35:16] And then there were some really great books

[00:35:18] that were very helpful to me.

[00:35:19] One was Never Caught,

[00:35:21] which is by Erica Armstrong Dunbar,

[00:35:23] which is about own a judge

[00:35:25] who was enslaved by George Washington,

[00:35:27] who while he was president

[00:35:28] exploited this loophole

[00:35:29] because the presidential mansion

[00:35:31] was in Philadelphia at the time.

[00:35:32] So he was sending his people back and forth.

[00:35:35] Eventually own a judge

[00:35:36] who was one of the women enslaved by him ran away

[00:35:38] and was ultimately free for the rest of her life,

[00:35:40] although he chased her.

[00:35:42] And then just to understand a little better

[00:35:44] the dynamic between women slave owners in particular

[00:35:47] and the people they enslaved is a great book.

[00:35:50] They were her property.

[00:35:51] Property.

[00:35:52] Yes.

[00:35:54] And I read that as well to understand

[00:35:56] what the ownership relationships looked like

[00:35:58] and also what kind of the

[00:36:00] the personal relationships could look like

[00:36:02] between these women who they have these mates

[00:36:05] who are in some ways, they're intimates.

[00:36:08] This is the woman who was spending so much time with them.

[00:36:11] And in some cases you would see

[00:36:13] this kind of gross conflation of,

[00:36:16] well yeah, you're my slave

[00:36:17] but you're like my best friend.

[00:36:19] You know all my secrets.

[00:36:21] I can tell you things.

[00:36:22] And this kind of erasure of enslaved women's

[00:36:26] kind of autonomy and their own questions

[00:36:28] about how do they feel about this woman

[00:36:30] who was holding them in this position.

[00:36:31] And Kate was an interesting character to write

[00:36:33] because initially I think

[00:36:35] I sort of wrote her more like a cartoon villain.

[00:36:38] Like she's ordering whippings

[00:36:39] and she's kind of twirling her mustache.

[00:36:41] But it felt to me like that wasn't necessary.

[00:36:44] I could let the simple fact

[00:36:46] of her being a slave owner be enough

[00:36:49] to convey her evil and her immorality.

[00:36:54] And there's something that felt a little more interesting

[00:36:55] and more textured about her having this belief

[00:36:58] that yes, I enslaved these women

[00:36:59] but you know they love me.

[00:37:01] They're my friends.

[00:37:02] It's fine.

[00:37:03] But don't ever forget that I'm in charge of you

[00:37:06] and I'm in control

[00:37:07] and I decide what good things happen to you

[00:37:09] and what bad things happen to you.

[00:37:10] Yes.

[00:37:11] And that's one of the major reveals

[00:37:13] between Charlotte and James in the end.

[00:37:17] In all that you have created here

[00:37:20] and all the parallels that we've talked about

[00:37:22] to present day America

[00:37:26] what do you want readers to take from your novel?

[00:37:28] I think what I want readers to take

[00:37:31] is an understanding

[00:37:33] that American history is far less neat

[00:37:35] than the way that it has been fed to us.

[00:37:38] I think we often get this story

[00:37:41] where it's kind of an unbroken line

[00:37:44] of upward progress towards,

[00:37:46] you know we're just getting better and better.

[00:37:49] We were a little racist to start with

[00:37:51] and we did some slavery and it was bad

[00:37:53] but the people in the North were great

[00:37:55] and they fixed it

[00:37:57] and we've just been getting better and better since then.

[00:37:59] We had the Civil War

[00:38:01] and then we had the Civil Rights Movement

[00:38:03] and bing bang boom, it's fine.

[00:38:06] And actually it's a lot messier than that.

[00:38:09] The places and the people

[00:38:11] that we've been taught to revere,

[00:38:13] the North, the abolitionists were imperfect.

[00:38:17] These were imperfect coalitions.

[00:38:19] They made compromises that did real harm to people.

[00:38:22] That's what that six month loophole is.

[00:38:24] That's a law that let people keep slaves in a free state.

[00:38:28] So I just want,

[00:38:29] I wanted to introduce some complexity and some nuance

[00:38:31] into the ways that people understand

[00:38:34] that portion of American history

[00:38:36] and I think what also feels really important to me

[00:38:38] is to understand the variance

[00:38:41] and the diversity of the history of Black people.

[00:38:43] We haven't always just been one thing.

[00:38:46] It wasn't that all of us were slaves at one point

[00:38:49] and then some of us were kind of poor and downtrodden

[00:38:51] and then we've slowly made our way.

[00:38:53] Every different kind of Black person has existed

[00:38:55] since the very founding of this country.

[00:38:58] There have been rich, there have been poor,

[00:38:59] there have been enslaved, there have been free

[00:39:02] and it matters that those people

[00:39:04] walked alongside one another during history,

[00:39:07] organized with each other,

[00:39:09] worked alongside each other,

[00:39:10] had conflict with each other.

[00:39:12] Listening to you lay out how history is taught

[00:39:15] made me chuckle because today's January 30th

[00:39:18] so we're getting right ahead into Black History Month

[00:39:21] and thinking about textbooks

[00:39:23] and how history is taught, how Black history is taught.

[00:39:27] It really is.

[00:39:28] There's the Civil War

[00:39:30] and then there's the Civil Rights Movement

[00:39:32] and not the hundred years in between.

[00:39:34] Nothing about that.

[00:39:35] Don't worry about that.

[00:39:37] Like it really is.

[00:39:38] Yep, it was like 1861 to 1865

[00:39:40] and then the Black folks were free

[00:39:41] and the 13th Amendment and rah rah rah

[00:39:44] and then in 1965 you got free again for real this time.

[00:39:48] And it's like, but what happened

[00:39:50] in the period in between?

[00:39:52] That's never really touched.

[00:39:53] Nope, nope.

[00:39:55] It's not really touched.

[00:39:57] And that period between the revolution

[00:40:00] and the Civil War.

[00:40:01] The Civil War, yes.

[00:40:02] What was going on here?

[00:40:05] It gets taught like, oh the South,

[00:40:06] you know they were so terrible,

[00:40:08] they were doing slavery, it was so bad.

[00:40:11] Well no, the North was doing a bit

[00:40:13] of their own kind of stuff.

[00:40:15] There were real problems here.

[00:40:17] And you don't even get a bit of that

[00:40:19] until like the mid 1800s.

[00:40:21] You might get Dred Scott and the Fugitive Slave Act.

[00:40:26] But even those are still 10, 20 years

[00:40:28] before the Civil War.

[00:40:30] So you have-

[00:40:31] It's all like the lead up to the Civil War.

[00:40:34] We were trying to be a free new country

[00:40:36] and then things got really bad for a little bit

[00:40:38] and the Civil War happened

[00:40:40] and then y'all were free

[00:40:42] and then needed to be freed again

[00:40:44] a hundred years later.

[00:40:45] But let's not explain why.

[00:40:47] Yes.

[00:40:49] Ah, America.

[00:40:50] America.

[00:40:52] I want to switch to a speed round

[00:40:54] at a game before I let you go

[00:40:56] for the afternoon.

[00:40:58] What is your favorite book?

[00:41:00] I can't pick an all-time favorite book.

[00:41:04] I will say my most favorite book

[00:41:06] that I've read recently is probably Cersei.

[00:41:12] Madeline Miller.

[00:41:14] It was just really beautiful

[00:41:15] and kind of haunting.

[00:41:16] And I just, I loved it.

[00:41:18] I loved it.

[00:41:19] Who is your favorite author?

[00:41:21] Geraldine Brooks.

[00:41:22] She writes historical fiction

[00:41:23] across a range of different time periods

[00:41:26] and subjects

[00:41:26] and I look up to her a great deal.

[00:41:28] So that's who I kind of aspire to emulate.

[00:41:31] So then do you have a favorite time period

[00:41:34] in history that you would want

[00:41:35] to keep writing about?

[00:41:36] No, actually.

[00:41:38] I like the 19th century.

[00:41:39] The 19th century is very, very interesting

[00:41:41] and I expect I'll return to it at some point.

[00:41:44] There are periods I want to explore

[00:41:45] in the early 20th century as well,

[00:41:47] particularly Prohibition

[00:41:48] and the time period around World War I.

[00:41:51] That's probably where I'm headed next.

[00:41:53] That will be real interesting for Black women.

[00:41:57] What do you think is the best book

[00:41:58] to movie adaptation?

[00:41:59] This is a terrible answer

[00:42:01] but The Scarlet Letter.

[00:42:03] I remember reading the book in high school

[00:42:05] and it was so boring

[00:42:06] but I saw the movie first

[00:42:08] so I thought this book is going to be great.

[00:42:12] I didn't like it

[00:42:12] but I came to find out years later

[00:42:14] people think The Scarlet Letter

[00:42:15] was a terrible movie.

[00:42:16] So, I don't know.

[00:42:17] I'm the wrong person to ask.

[00:42:19] We read the book in high school

[00:42:22] and then we watched the movie afterward in class.

[00:42:25] The movie was really good.

[00:42:26] It was!

[00:42:26] It was so good.

[00:42:28] Apparently it was widely panned by the critics.

[00:42:30] Like, I don't know.

[00:42:31] I thought it was great.

[00:42:32] Compared to the book,

[00:42:34] the movie did everything that it needed to do.

[00:42:37] Exactly.

[00:42:38] Exactly.

[00:42:40] I love that answer.

[00:42:42] If money were no object,

[00:42:44] where would you go?

[00:42:44] What would you do?

[00:42:45] And where would you live?

[00:42:47] I'll start with where I would live.

[00:42:48] I would live close to my family.

[00:42:51] I think that's the answer.

[00:42:52] So probably around here.

[00:42:54] My parents are in Delaware.

[00:42:55] My in-laws are in Central Pennsylvania.

[00:42:57] So somewhere around here,

[00:42:58] Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.

[00:43:00] If money were no object,

[00:43:01] I would just be an author

[00:43:04] and nothing else.

[00:43:05] That's mostly what I would do.

[00:43:09] And what was the last one?

[00:43:10] Where would I go?

[00:43:12] Everywhere.

[00:43:15] Everywhere.

[00:43:16] I would travel.

[00:43:18] My most important trip that I'm trying to,

[00:43:21] like my bucket list trip is the Galapagos Island.

[00:43:24] So that's probably where I would go first.

[00:43:26] Yes.

[00:43:27] Since we talked about it,

[00:43:28] describe your best soft life.

[00:43:31] My best soft life is just time and space

[00:43:35] to read and write.

[00:43:37] And there's no hustle,

[00:43:39] no meetings.

[00:43:40] Just space.

[00:43:43] Just a spacious life full of time,

[00:43:46] I think is what it is.

[00:43:48] I too am trying to attain that best soft life.

[00:43:53] What brings you joy?

[00:43:55] My children.

[00:43:56] They're very funny little people.

[00:43:58] They're six and four now.

[00:44:00] So they say a lot of funny things.

[00:44:02] And what brings you peace?

[00:44:05] Solitude and puzzles.

[00:44:07] I do like a puzzle.

[00:44:08] Yeah.

[00:44:09] Our game is called Rewriting the Classics.

[00:44:11] Classic is however you define it.

[00:44:14] Name one book you wished you would have written.

[00:44:17] I wish I could rewrite Gone with the Wind.

[00:44:21] And it would just be very different

[00:44:23] and maybe very, maybe more accurate.

[00:44:27] But that's like, that's often held up as a classic.

[00:44:29] And I think a lot of us read it and see it

[00:44:31] before we know anything's wrong with it.

[00:44:34] So if there's a way to redo it and fix it,

[00:44:36] that's what I would do.

[00:44:37] So then name one book where you want to change the ending

[00:44:40] and how would you do it?

[00:44:44] This is very small, but I read Homegoing over the summer.

[00:44:48] Yagayasi Homegoing.

[00:44:49] And the two main characters from the last part of the book,

[00:44:54] they're together in the sea.

[00:44:56] And we as the readers know that they're kind of connected.

[00:45:00] They have family connection, but they don't know.

[00:45:02] I wish there would have been some way

[00:45:04] for them to access that information.

[00:45:08] It ends on such a bittersweet note

[00:45:10] because they can never know.

[00:45:11] And that's what the vagaries of history and slavery

[00:45:14] and colonization have done to them

[00:45:17] and their lines of family.

[00:45:19] But if there was just some way for them to feel or know

[00:45:24] that connection that they have across the diaspora,

[00:45:26] I think that's the one tiny thing

[00:45:28] I would change about an otherwise perfect book.

[00:45:31] Yeah, because they're cousins.

[00:45:33] Yeah.

[00:45:34] Yeah.

[00:45:34] And then name a book that you think is overrated

[00:45:38] or overtaught and why?

[00:45:40] The Catcher in the Rye.

[00:45:45] I think about it so often,

[00:45:48] and my only thought is like,

[00:45:50] why did I have to read this book?

[00:45:54] I understand it's considered one of the classics

[00:45:56] and it's giving us a window into teen angst,

[00:46:00] but that sensation of why am I reading this?

[00:46:03] Why is this happening?

[00:46:05] That I felt while I was reading it,

[00:46:06] I think in like 11th grade has never left me.

[00:46:09] So I'm laughing for so many reasons

[00:46:13] that only my audience will know.

[00:46:15] But if they are keeping count,

[00:46:17] this has to be number 16 of interviews this season.

[00:46:20] People who said the Catcher in the Rye

[00:46:22] is the book that they give back.

[00:46:25] Like your interview is going to air in May

[00:46:28] and I swear you're like number 16.

[00:46:31] Oh my gosh.

[00:46:32] I'm happy to know I'm not alone.

[00:46:33] You are not alone.

[00:46:36] Like, I really now have to start going back

[00:46:39] and keeping count.

[00:46:41] The number of people that are just like,

[00:46:42] nah fam, Catcher in the Rye.

[00:46:46] No thank you.

[00:46:47] Take it out of the curriculum,

[00:46:48] remove it from the canon.

[00:46:50] We're done.

[00:46:51] I feel like this now needs to be a change.org petition.

[00:46:56] Where do I sign up?

[00:46:57] Please.

[00:47:00] All right.

[00:47:01] Final question.

[00:47:03] When you are dead and gone and among the ancestors,

[00:47:06] what would you like someone to write

[00:47:08] about the legacy of words and work that you've left behind?

[00:47:13] I would like someone to write

[00:47:16] that I showed them in America

[00:47:17] that they'd never seen before.

[00:47:20] Amen.

[00:47:21] Big thank you to Ashton Latimore

[00:47:23] for being here today on Black and Published.

[00:47:26] Make sure you check out Ashton's debut novel,

[00:47:28] All We Were Promised,

[00:47:30] out now from Ballantine Books.

[00:47:32] And if you're not following Ashton,

[00:47:35] check her out on the socials.

[00:47:36] She's at Ashton Latimore on Instagram and Twitter.

[00:47:42] That's our show for the week.

[00:47:43] If you liked this episode

[00:47:45] and want more Black and Published,

[00:47:47] head to our Instagram page.

[00:47:49] It's at Black and Published

[00:47:51] and that's BLK and Published.

[00:47:55] There I've posted a bonus clip

[00:47:56] from my interview with Ashton

[00:47:58] about creating Black characters in the 19th century

[00:48:02] that one rarely sees in literature.

[00:48:05] Make sure you check it out

[00:48:06] and let me know what you think in the comments.

[00:48:08] I'll holla at y'all next week

[00:48:10] when our guest will be Dr. Jen M. Jackson,

[00:48:14] author of Black Women Taught Us,

[00:48:16] An Intimate History of Black Feminism.

[00:48:19] My fantastic, amazing editor at Penguin Random House,

[00:48:25] Marie.

[00:48:26] She reached out to me and she said,

[00:48:27] have you ever thought about writing a book?

[00:48:30] And she was like, I think you're incredible.

[00:48:32] I've been reading your work for a very long time.

[00:48:35] I'm reading your Teen Vogue column.

[00:48:36] She had read all of these experiences

[00:48:38] that I have been writing over these years

[00:48:39] and she was like,

[00:48:40] why aren't you putting this stuff in a book?

[00:48:43] And I said, well, I thought nobody was listening.

[00:48:46] That's next week on Black and Published.

[00:48:49] I'll talk to you then.

[00:48:50] Peace.