WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.260 align:middle line:90% What are you doing? 00:00:01.260 --> 00:00:01.830 align:middle line:90% Hi, James. 00:00:01.830 --> 00:00:02.700 align:middle line:90% Hi. 00:00:02.700 --> 00:00:06.360 align:middle line:84% What went into the character of Scotty? 00:00:06.360 --> 00:00:09.060 align:middle line:84% How did you come up with his personification? 00:00:09.060 --> 00:00:10.560 align:middle line:84% I always feel like people are trying 00:00:10.560 --> 00:00:12.240 align:middle line:84% to ask, when they ask that question, 00:00:12.240 --> 00:00:14.160 align:middle line:90% whether or not I've done crack. 00:00:14.160 --> 00:00:15.440 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:15.440 --> 00:00:19.770 align:middle line:84% Like, how do you know Scotty so well? 00:00:19.770 --> 00:00:24.390 align:middle line:84% But I mean, it wasn't like I started 00:00:24.390 --> 00:00:27.345 align:middle line:84% writing this book with the idea that I would make Scotty 00:00:27.345 --> 00:00:28.470 align:middle line:90% the voice of crack cocaine. 00:00:28.470 --> 00:00:30.960 align:middle line:84% In fact, the character had no name. 00:00:30.960 --> 00:00:32.460 align:middle line:84% I originally thought that that voice 00:00:32.460 --> 00:00:35.730 align:middle line:84% was going to be a lot closer to the character of Darlene, 00:00:35.730 --> 00:00:39.750 align:middle line:84% that she would be a person who was a little more street. 00:00:39.750 --> 00:00:41.490 align:middle line:84% But at a certain point, I decided just 00:00:41.490 --> 00:00:46.203 align:middle line:84% to kind of dramatize her story a little bit, 00:00:46.203 --> 00:00:48.120 align:middle line:84% that she should be a different sort of person. 00:00:48.120 --> 00:00:49.320 align:middle line:90% And it would be-- 00:00:49.320 --> 00:00:54.443 align:middle line:84% you could see a little bit more clearly what was at stake. 00:00:54.443 --> 00:00:55.860 align:middle line:84% But I had been writing this voice, 00:00:55.860 --> 00:00:58.680 align:middle line:84% and I was really enjoying writing the voice. 00:00:58.680 --> 00:01:01.065 align:middle line:84% And it allowed me the opportunity 00:01:01.065 --> 00:01:06.270 align:middle line:84% to be nasty, especially, as you know, 00:01:06.270 --> 00:01:10.500 align:middle line:84% to just introduce into a literary setting a lot 00:01:10.500 --> 00:01:20.670 align:middle line:84% of bad words and bad sentiments and just evil, just some evil. 00:01:20.670 --> 00:01:25.390 align:middle line:84% And so one of the things I had to ask myself after-- 00:01:25.390 --> 00:01:27.868 align:middle line:84% as in, if I wanted to still keep writing this voice, 00:01:27.868 --> 00:01:29.410 align:middle line:84% I had to ask myself, well, who is it? 00:01:29.410 --> 00:01:31.243 align:middle line:84% And what is their relationship to the story? 00:01:31.243 --> 00:01:33.240 align:middle line:84% And one of the answers that came to me 00:01:33.240 --> 00:01:36.510 align:middle line:90% was, oh, well, it's the drug. 00:01:36.510 --> 00:01:39.640 align:middle line:84% And as I was saying earlier this afternoon, 00:01:39.640 --> 00:01:44.160 align:middle line:84% my first thought after that was, no one's going to like that. 00:01:44.160 --> 00:01:46.620 align:middle line:84% But my second thought was, Victor LaValle 00:01:46.620 --> 00:01:51.540 align:middle line:84% is going to like that, who's a speculative fiction writer, 00:01:51.540 --> 00:01:55.200 align:middle line:84% a Black man, who does even weirder stuff than that. 00:01:55.200 --> 00:01:58.000 align:middle line:90% 00:01:58.000 --> 00:01:59.830 align:middle line:90% So that's how that started. 00:01:59.830 --> 00:02:02.050 align:middle line:84% And then it became a way of getting 00:02:02.050 --> 00:02:05.830 align:middle line:84% through what is some really pretty dire, dark material. 00:02:05.830 --> 00:02:07.990 align:middle line:84% Infusing it with a little bit of sick humor 00:02:07.990 --> 00:02:12.310 align:middle line:84% was my way of both reconciling this thing that I've realized 00:02:12.310 --> 00:02:13.510 align:middle line:90% is-- 00:02:13.510 --> 00:02:17.630 align:middle line:84% I have these two very strong impulses when I'm making work. 00:02:17.630 --> 00:02:22.570 align:middle line:84% One of them is to get people to deal with subject matter 00:02:22.570 --> 00:02:24.790 align:middle line:84% and things that they either are not looking at 00:02:24.790 --> 00:02:29.530 align:middle line:84% or, for whatever reason, don't want to look at, 00:02:29.530 --> 00:02:31.270 align:middle line:84% that still seem very important to me. 00:02:31.270 --> 00:02:33.070 align:middle line:90% And this story was like-- 00:02:33.070 --> 00:02:38.050 align:middle line:84% it seemed really important that the conversation about slavery 00:02:38.050 --> 00:02:43.540 align:middle line:84% would change, potentially, if I could finish this book. 00:02:43.540 --> 00:02:46.490 align:middle line:84% But by the same token, it was horrible. 00:02:46.490 --> 00:02:48.550 align:middle line:90% It's so depressing. 00:02:48.550 --> 00:02:51.700 align:middle line:84% And so the way that I was able to get through it 00:02:51.700 --> 00:02:54.695 align:middle line:90% was through the voice of Scotty. 00:02:54.695 --> 00:02:55.570 align:middle line:90% I mean, which isn't-- 00:02:55.570 --> 00:02:57.945 align:middle line:84% I mean, there are a lot of, there are alternating voices, 00:02:57.945 --> 00:02:59.950 align:middle line:84% but Scotty kind of keeps it going. 00:02:59.950 --> 00:03:03.620 align:middle line:84% There's evil, but it also brings a lot of light in. 00:03:03.620 --> 00:03:07.260 align:middle line:84% Well, distance, actually, which is-- 00:03:07.260 --> 00:03:13.445 align:middle line:84% I've heard comedy defined as tragedy plus distance. 00:03:13.445 --> 00:03:15.260 align:middle line:90% Right? 00:03:15.260 --> 00:03:22.490 align:middle line:84% Because his objectives-- I mean, I hesitate to gender Scotty 00:03:22.490 --> 00:03:25.580 align:middle line:90% because it doesn't have a body. 00:03:25.580 --> 00:03:28.700 align:middle line:84% And that's actually kind of part of the point that Scotty makes, 00:03:28.700 --> 00:03:32.780 align:middle line:84% is that, I don't have a body, so I don't have the problems 00:03:32.780 --> 00:03:34.205 align:middle line:90% that you people have. 00:03:34.205 --> 00:03:36.710 align:middle line:90% 00:03:36.710 --> 00:03:39.562 align:middle line:90% But wait, what was I saying? 00:03:39.562 --> 00:03:40.520 align:middle line:90% I've totally forgotten. 00:03:40.520 --> 00:03:41.480 align:middle line:90% His gender? 00:03:41.480 --> 00:03:41.980 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:03:41.980 --> 00:03:43.150 align:middle line:90% Well, right, but before that. 00:03:43.150 --> 00:03:43.650 align:middle line:90% Comedy? 00:03:43.650 --> 00:03:45.640 align:middle line:90% [INTERPOSING VOICES] 00:03:45.640 --> 00:03:46.525 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:03:46.525 --> 00:03:47.920 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:03:47.920 --> 00:03:49.660 align:middle line:90% I'll look at the tape. 00:03:49.660 --> 00:03:51.880 align:middle line:90% Hi. 00:03:51.880 --> 00:03:53.950 align:middle line:90% Oh, there's a mic. 00:03:53.950 --> 00:03:56.830 align:middle line:90% Please take the mic. 00:03:56.830 --> 00:04:02.770 align:middle line:84% Thank you very much for what you read. 00:04:02.770 --> 00:04:04.660 align:middle line:90% There's more? 00:04:04.660 --> 00:04:09.550 align:middle line:84% And then, of course, the question and your comment 00:04:09.550 --> 00:04:17.379 align:middle line:84% made me think that writing of tragedy is very hard. 00:04:17.379 --> 00:04:20.560 align:middle line:90% 00:04:20.560 --> 00:04:27.220 align:middle line:84% And one of the ways to make it easier 00:04:27.220 --> 00:04:38.140 align:middle line:84% is that tragedy is also necessarily comic. 00:04:38.140 --> 00:04:43.840 align:middle line:84% Not comical humorous, but comic in the tragic and tragic sense. 00:04:43.840 --> 00:04:44.545 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:04:44.545 --> 00:04:45.760 align:middle line:90% Don't you think? 00:04:45.760 --> 00:04:51.092 align:middle line:84% Yeah, I mean, that's pretty much what I was saying a moment ago. 00:04:51.092 --> 00:04:53.050 align:middle line:84% But there's also a character later in the book, 00:04:53.050 --> 00:04:56.350 align:middle line:84% says something along those lines. 00:04:56.350 --> 00:04:59.080 align:middle line:84% Or about memory, anyway, because he 00:04:59.080 --> 00:05:00.910 align:middle line:84% seems to remember a lot of something 00:05:00.910 --> 00:05:03.550 align:middle line:84% else that is somebody else's problems. 00:05:03.550 --> 00:05:05.260 align:middle line:84% And he says, it's no fun remembering 00:05:05.260 --> 00:05:06.490 align:middle line:90% the shit that happened to me. 00:05:06.490 --> 00:05:09.215 align:middle line:90% 00:05:09.215 --> 00:05:10.720 align:middle line:90% It makes it easier. 00:05:10.720 --> 00:05:16.600 align:middle line:84% It makes it a story if you can describe somebody else's pain, 00:05:16.600 --> 00:05:20.520 align:middle line:84% because it's so hard to face your own-- 00:05:20.520 --> 00:05:23.425 align:middle line:90% one's own, not personal. 00:05:23.425 --> 00:05:30.960 align:middle line:90% 00:05:30.960 --> 00:05:34.618 align:middle line:84% So you say that the first chapter used to be a prologue? 00:05:34.618 --> 00:05:35.785 align:middle line:90% No, no, it's now a prologue. 00:05:35.785 --> 00:05:36.950 align:middle line:90% Oh, it's now a prologue? 00:05:36.950 --> 00:05:38.330 align:middle line:90% It used to be the first chapter. 00:05:38.330 --> 00:05:41.690 align:middle line:84% But you can take that up with my editor. 00:05:41.690 --> 00:05:44.300 align:middle line:84% That was one of the battles I lost. 00:05:44.300 --> 00:05:48.170 align:middle line:90% But I still can't mentally-- 00:05:48.170 --> 00:05:52.580 align:middle line:84% I'm still holding on to it mentally for no good reason. 00:05:52.580 --> 00:05:54.860 align:middle line:84% And what was the argument to change? 00:05:54.860 --> 00:05:57.050 align:middle line:90% I don't even-- I tried-- 00:05:57.050 --> 00:05:58.040 align:middle line:90% I mean, it-- 00:05:58.040 --> 00:05:59.960 align:middle line:90% I don't remember, exactly. 00:05:59.960 --> 00:06:02.000 align:middle line:90% But I think he felt-- 00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:06.500 align:middle line:84% the book does a lot of crazy moving around in time. 00:06:06.500 --> 00:06:10.310 align:middle line:84% But that first prologue, the thing 00:06:10.310 --> 00:06:11.750 align:middle line:84% that is now the prologue, I think 00:06:11.750 --> 00:06:15.890 align:middle line:84% sets up a lot of what comes after it. 00:06:15.890 --> 00:06:18.590 align:middle line:84% Actually, the thing that I managed to argue against 00:06:18.590 --> 00:06:22.260 align:middle line:84% was the prologue that's in italics. 00:06:22.260 --> 00:06:23.820 align:middle line:90% That, I couldn't do. 00:06:23.820 --> 00:06:27.360 align:middle line:90% 00:06:27.360 --> 00:06:31.860 align:middle line:84% I actually have a question about the prologue and about time. 00:06:31.860 --> 00:06:36.240 align:middle line:84% It occurred to me as you were-- as the character was 00:06:36.240 --> 00:06:40.180 align:middle line:84% going to St Cloud and progressing from there, 00:06:40.180 --> 00:06:45.180 align:middle line:84% that there was this ratio of 90%, or even more, maybe, 00:06:45.180 --> 00:06:47.460 align:middle line:84% progressive, narrative action going forward 00:06:47.460 --> 00:06:50.610 align:middle line:84% all the way up to getting a job, getting married, having 00:06:50.610 --> 00:06:51.360 align:middle line:90% a child. 00:06:51.360 --> 00:06:54.240 align:middle line:84% And there's like 10% that's much more weighted about what 00:06:54.240 --> 00:06:56.730 align:middle line:90% happened before and what-- 00:06:56.730 --> 00:06:59.370 align:middle line:84% gradually, we're getting little details 00:06:59.370 --> 00:07:03.180 align:middle line:84% of what had happened to his hands, what Delicious 00:07:03.180 --> 00:07:05.700 align:middle line:90% Foods was, who Fremont is. 00:07:05.700 --> 00:07:10.252 align:middle line:84% And I'm wondering if there are writers who operate that way-- 00:07:10.252 --> 00:07:12.210 align:middle line:84% I can maybe think of a couple-- but I wondered, 00:07:12.210 --> 00:07:15.240 align:middle line:84% who is important to you in terms of the way time's working 00:07:15.240 --> 00:07:17.295 align:middle line:90% in that opening prologue? 00:07:17.295 --> 00:07:19.830 align:middle line:84% Or even if you could speak more about that ratio, 00:07:19.830 --> 00:07:23.020 align:middle line:90% if that's useful to you? 00:07:23.020 --> 00:07:28.210 align:middle line:84% Well, I always feel put on the spot when people ask me, 00:07:28.210 --> 00:07:30.070 align:middle line:90% what influenced this? 00:07:30.070 --> 00:07:34.580 align:middle line:84% I was saying earlier, I was reading a lot of Faulkner. 00:07:34.580 --> 00:07:37.940 align:middle line:84% And while he doesn't always do that, I mean, 00:07:37.940 --> 00:07:40.850 align:middle line:84% he's sort of famous for having done it. 00:07:40.850 --> 00:07:45.620 align:middle line:84% But I began this book knowing that I 00:07:45.620 --> 00:07:48.770 align:middle line:84% wanted to do something strange with time, 00:07:48.770 --> 00:07:52.310 align:middle line:84% because the original, the story that inspired it, 00:07:52.310 --> 00:07:55.670 align:middle line:84% was something that made me think about time. 00:07:55.670 --> 00:08:00.410 align:middle line:84% It's like, OK, so there's a Black woman in slavery in 1992 00:08:00.410 --> 00:08:02.180 align:middle line:90% in Florida. 00:08:02.180 --> 00:08:04.200 align:middle line:90% What century are we in? 00:08:04.200 --> 00:08:06.500 align:middle line:90% What exactly is time? 00:08:06.500 --> 00:08:11.150 align:middle line:84% And are these impulses to exploit one another, 00:08:11.150 --> 00:08:15.350 align:middle line:84% are these just like human qualities? 00:08:15.350 --> 00:08:18.470 align:middle line:84% I mean, I don't even want to use the word quality when 00:08:18.470 --> 00:08:21.110 align:middle line:84% I say this, but is that just a human flaw, 00:08:21.110 --> 00:08:26.390 align:middle line:84% that this is something as a species that we want and have-- 00:08:26.390 --> 00:08:30.470 align:middle line:90% but I'm off topic, sort of, now. 00:08:30.470 --> 00:08:32.840 align:middle line:84% But I knew that I wanted it to be, 00:08:32.840 --> 00:08:34.760 align:middle line:84% that I wanted time to go strangely. 00:08:34.760 --> 00:08:36.740 align:middle line:84% I just can't think of other precedents, 00:08:36.740 --> 00:08:38.690 align:middle line:84% other than The Sound and the Fury. 00:08:38.690 --> 00:08:42.909 align:middle line:90% But that's sort of easy. 00:08:42.909 --> 00:08:46.170 align:middle line:90% Can I get back to you on that? 00:08:46.170 --> 00:08:48.730 align:middle line:84% There's a hand over here, and then we'll wrap it up. 00:08:48.730 --> 00:08:51.370 align:middle line:90% 00:08:51.370 --> 00:08:53.080 align:middle line:84% And you'll have to get back to all of us. 00:08:53.080 --> 00:08:53.580 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:08:53.580 --> 00:08:57.320 align:middle line:90% 00:08:57.320 --> 00:09:00.200 align:middle line:84% Yes, speaking of time going strangely, 00:09:00.200 --> 00:09:03.050 align:middle line:84% you originally intended for what your editor changed 00:09:03.050 --> 00:09:05.000 align:middle line:84% to a prologue to be the first chapter, which 00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:06.860 align:middle line:84% means you originally intended for the reader 00:09:06.860 --> 00:09:09.090 align:middle line:90% to know that Eddie gets out. 00:09:09.090 --> 00:09:09.770 align:middle line:90% And you've-- 00:09:09.770 --> 00:09:10.280 align:middle line:90% [INTERPOSING VOICES] 00:09:10.280 --> 00:09:11.180 align:middle line:90% --created his life. 00:09:11.180 --> 00:09:14.840 align:middle line:84% Why did you let us know immediately 00:09:14.840 --> 00:09:16.010 align:middle line:90% that he was going to be OK? 00:09:16.010 --> 00:09:20.500 align:middle line:90% 00:09:20.500 --> 00:09:23.510 align:middle line:84% I think that also makes it a little easier 00:09:23.510 --> 00:09:26.840 align:middle line:90% to handle what comes later. 00:09:26.840 --> 00:09:30.170 align:middle line:84% And one of the other things that the book does 00:09:30.170 --> 00:09:34.220 align:middle line:84% is that it deals with narrative in terms of information 00:09:34.220 --> 00:09:37.790 align:middle line:84% rather than in terms of chronology. 00:09:37.790 --> 00:09:42.485 align:middle line:84% So the chapters move forward in a way that-- 00:09:42.485 --> 00:09:44.600 align:middle line:84% and I guess this is talking about, 00:09:44.600 --> 00:09:47.810 align:middle line:84% this is the thing that I was doing that the gentleman over 00:09:47.810 --> 00:09:51.380 align:middle line:84% there was talking about, where it isn't-- 00:09:51.380 --> 00:09:53.210 align:middle line:84% I was taking, I was exploiting the idea 00:09:53.210 --> 00:09:58.640 align:middle line:84% that we don't read just to know what happened, but how. 00:09:58.640 --> 00:09:59.330 align:middle line:90% Right? 00:09:59.330 --> 00:10:01.250 align:middle line:84% The process is what we want to know. 00:10:01.250 --> 00:10:02.760 align:middle line:84% I could tell you there was a murder, 00:10:02.760 --> 00:10:05.982 align:middle line:84% and you would be like, because I told you that, it 00:10:05.982 --> 00:10:07.190 align:middle line:90% doesn't really mean anything. 00:10:07.190 --> 00:10:08.565 align:middle line:84% It's like you want to know, well, 00:10:08.565 --> 00:10:11.870 align:middle line:90% what are all these questions? 00:10:11.870 --> 00:10:14.606 align:middle line:84% You'd have a lot of questions about what that-- 00:10:14.606 --> 00:10:17.090 align:middle line:84% how it happened, and who did it, and who did what, 00:10:17.090 --> 00:10:20.450 align:middle line:90% and just what the timeline was. 00:10:20.450 --> 00:10:26.390 align:middle line:84% And I felt like there's a lot of symbolic weight in what 00:10:26.390 --> 00:10:28.820 align:middle line:90% happens to him. 00:10:28.820 --> 00:10:31.070 align:middle line:84% This is a story about labor, right? 00:10:31.070 --> 00:10:35.270 align:middle line:84% And it ends up with a guy who has no hands, which 00:10:35.270 --> 00:10:37.118 align:middle line:90% for me are a very powerful-- 00:10:37.118 --> 00:10:38.660 align:middle line:84% I mean, it's kind of cheap, actually. 00:10:38.660 --> 00:10:44.510 align:middle line:84% It's a cheap symbol of what someone's labor-- 00:10:44.510 --> 00:10:48.890 align:middle line:84% But on top of that, it's the fact that he 00:10:48.890 --> 00:10:52.400 align:middle line:84% is able to recover from that, I thought, 00:10:52.400 --> 00:10:58.780 align:middle line:84% was sort of doubly symbolic of the struggles of African 00:10:58.780 --> 00:11:01.220 align:middle line:84% Americans in the United States who 00:11:01.220 --> 00:11:04.280 align:middle line:84% have had to pretty much do what he 00:11:04.280 --> 00:11:08.690 align:middle line:84% has done in various, small ways for a very long time. 00:11:08.690 --> 00:11:12.040 align:middle line:84% And it's not just African Americans, but-- 00:11:12.040 --> 00:11:13.040 align:middle line:90% I don't know if that's-- 00:11:13.040 --> 00:11:15.417 align:middle line:90% Does that even vaguely answer?-- 00:11:15.417 --> 00:11:16.250 align:middle line:90% I just, I liked him. 00:11:16.250 --> 00:11:17.660 align:middle line:84% I thought that was a good answer. 00:11:17.660 --> 00:11:22.370 align:middle line:84% Yeah, but I mean it was also that idea of the magic Negro 00:11:22.370 --> 00:11:25.520 align:middle line:84% that Susan brought up before, that every time there's 00:11:25.520 --> 00:11:28.970 align:middle line:84% a character who seems to be in a story 00:11:28.970 --> 00:11:34.800 align:middle line:84% merely for the catharsis of white characters, 00:11:34.800 --> 00:11:37.010 align:middle line:84% that's the character that I want to follow. 00:11:37.010 --> 00:11:39.050 align:middle line:84% Because it's often something, they often 00:11:39.050 --> 00:11:41.177 align:middle line:84% have some kind of interesting trauma 00:11:41.177 --> 00:11:42.260 align:middle line:90% that they're dealing with. 00:11:42.260 --> 00:11:44.870 align:middle line:84% But no, we don't get to hear that story. 00:11:44.870 --> 00:11:47.390 align:middle line:90% But that's where I want to go. 00:11:47.390 --> 00:11:52.810 align:middle line:84% And so, who is the one who was always, 00:11:52.810 --> 00:11:56.560 align:middle line:84% [INAUDIBLE] Oh, I guess it's, there's 00:11:56.560 --> 00:12:00.010 align:middle line:84% a chestnut about The Bluest Eye, that Toni Morrison was like, 00:12:00.010 --> 00:12:02.110 align:middle line:84% I want to write the book that I want to read. 00:12:02.110 --> 00:12:04.160 align:middle line:90% Because I don't see it anywhere. 00:12:04.160 --> 00:12:08.120 align:middle line:90% And it's a good rule of thumb. 00:12:08.120 --> 00:12:08.990 align:middle line:90% Thank you so much. 00:12:08.990 --> 00:12:10.580 align:middle line:90% I'm done if you're done. 00:12:10.580 --> 00:12:14.500 align:middle line:84% Come back tomorrow, and we'll hear chapters three and four. 00:12:14.500 --> 00:12:15.000 align:middle line:90%