November Book Club: Victoria Redel (I Am You)

In this *spoiler free* conversation, host Jason Blitman talks to author Victoria Redel about her book I AM YOU, the November Gays Reading Book Club pick with Allstora.

I AM YOU subverts the idea of a 17th-century historical novel  — it’s intimate, modern, and deeply queer in the way it explores gender, art, and identity. The characters feel so alive and complex that you can’t help but get pulled into their world, which makes it a perfect book for thoughtful, layered discussion. It’s the kind of book that lingers — beautifully written, emotionally charged, and full of questions about power, love, and what it means to truly see and be seen.

Victoria Redel has written four books of poetry and six books of fiction. Her short stories, poetry, and essays have appeared in Granta, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and BOMB, and she’s received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Fine Arts Work Center. Victoria is a professor at Sarah Lawrence College and splits her time between New York City and Utah.

What do you get when you join the Gays Reading Book Club?

• Curated book delivered monthly to your door (at a discount!) – the books we’d call “accessibly literary”
• 30% Off Allstora’s website
• Access to the book club “Kiki” to talk about the books
• Exclusive author Q&As
• Allstora donates a children’s book to an LGBTQIA+ youth
• This club exclusively supports LGBTQIA+ authors
• And more!

Transcript

0:04

Gaze reading where the greats drop by trendy authors. Tell us all the who, what, and why. Anyone can listen. Comes we're spoiler free Reading from politic stars to book club picks where the curious minds can get their picks. So you say you're not gay. Well that's okay. There's something for everyone. Gays rating. Hello and welcome to GA's Reading and today's episode, the special bonus episode with the November Gaze reading booklet. Pick with Altoa. The author Victoria Riddell talking to me about her book. I am You to learn more about the book club, check out the link in the Instagram bio or the link in the show notes. Uh, when you join a book club through stoa, you get your first book for a dollar Stoa donates a children's book to an lgbtqia plus youth. And this club specifically every author is a member of the LGBTQIA plus community, and for lack of a more articulate way of saying it. The profit share is so much better for authors. On this platform than they are in most other places. So it's a really great way to support queer authors to support Gaia's reading and to support an online indie bookstore. So that's that about Altoa. Victoria's bio is in the show notes. I am so excited for you to hear this. I'm so excited for you to read the book and join us for great conversations over on Stora. Enjoy this, uh, spoiler free book club conversation with Victoria.

Jason Blitman: 1:51

I'm so excited because of course your book I Am You is the November Gays Reading Book Club Pick and I am so excited about it and listen, if I was only picking book club books by covers alone, this was a no brainer.

Victoria Redel: 2:14

I think it's actually a challenge. Like I've started thinking the cover's so beautiful that if the interior had just been like oh God, this is really judging the book by the cover. She gets the cover, but not the soul,

Jason Blitman: 2:29

I know that's very true. Um, well I'll keep you posted'cause I haven't read it yet. No, just kidding. Could you imagine if I literally only picked books by their covers? so for the listener, for the folks who have not yet read it, what is your elevator pitch for IMU?

Victoria Redel: 2:47

I have a hard time with that elevator pitch thing.

Jason Blitman: 2:49

Everyone does. You're not alone.

Victoria Redel: 2:51

So it's a book that takes place in the 17th century about two women artists. It's a portrait of portrait of an artist of two different ways of becoming. So one is a woman who's brought into an upper from an upper class family an artist who's trying to achieve. Beyond the levels that she's excluded from with men. And the other is a person brought into a family and as a servant, and then slowly is given the possibility of becoming a paint preparer and assistant in an intimate to the artist and then an artist in her own right. And with those two relationships we have the complexity of what happens when. Or if the assistant exceeds the master and all of the jealousies and com competitions and ambitions.

Jason Blitman: 3:45

You say all of that. And yes, all of that is very true. And I think anyone hears historical fiction art and very serious topics, they don't think funny. This book is

Victoria Redel: 3:59

Oh good. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. I did not. I came in, the more I went into the 17th century, the more I felt I was in a contemporary time period. And I felt that the, to have some idea of the 17th century as these people who aren't body raunchy, sensuous messed up. Funny, full of spite, furious, nasty with each other, sexy with each other would be really to just make the past look like it's a an Epcot, like a Disney version of what being alive and human is. So I hope it's.

Jason Blitman: 4:38

Or and for that matter, if you just look at a photograph from 2025 and you look at like a serious moment in time right now, you don't necessarily think, oh, what a funny, those people were funny. Like you don't think that, right? So when you look at something, if you look at a painting from the 17th century, you don't immediately think, oh, I wonder what they were like on a daily basis. But in fact. Just, as we do today, we need humor to survive. We are sarcastic. We, there are, there are pieces of life that just don't go away.

Victoria Redel: 5:13

hopefully. Hopefully that's I think that's true.

Jason Blitman: 5:16

The book is such, a very specific commentary on gender and gender roles, but also the visual expectations of What that means. What was that experience like for you, putting that on the

Victoria Redel: 5:31

I loved it. I was really I loved that a lot. I went into the novel knowing that Peter Gerta is, was. Going to be a girl brought into a family as a boy. I just it seemed immediate to me. It wasn't like, oh, this seems like a good idea. It was an inevitability for me. And as soon as I had that, I knew that I was gonna get to let Peter be gerta, let Gerta be Peter and that I did not need to fix. Somebody as one thing. And I that was, initially Peter's choices are not his choices. He's brought in one way and when he becomes a woman, it's not by his choice that he becomes a woman. He's forced into it for other people's needs. But then he says, or they say, eventually I could be Peter and I could be gida for my own needs. And that became really important for me. Plus it was just fun to have them, him keep switching and moving through a culture. And thinking about in a daily way, how the advantages that moving through gives you on even a physical level, like what it is to. Be a boy and feel like you can move your body in certain ways versus how a girl feels. She can move her body, but he and he, they have to keep learning and relearning the codes for each and then messing with them.

Jason Blitman: 6:57

Yeah it's this sort of. A comment on the costumes that we wear and the expectations that those bring to those around us, but also it's this really interesting sort of balance of nurture verse nature, but also survival and what does needing to survive and needing to succeed. How does that play a role in those other pieces of life and how they all mix together? And what you were saying, you they're learning from each of those parts of themselves. And can, there is a fluidity about how they learn to present themselves to the

Victoria Redel: 7:38

I was always the, when I was young, there was two events, one was. As a young person, I saw a in Greenwich Village, a rock version of 12th Night called Your Own Thing. And and so it was, I was a an elementary school kid and my best friend's parents took us to the play and I was blown away by it. It was the first time that I saw that on stage and I thought. That is so cool that she goes there and then she's a boy and he goes there, that just this switch. And then later in my life I found myself reading and hearing some things about women who shipped aboard wailing ships dressed as men or served in armies dressed as men. Again, for necessity. But also for the freedom of a kind of different life for adventure. And I think in some of those cases it wasn't particularly, it was about gender as opposed to about, for example, sexuality. And the freedom that they had to go someplace that they would not be able to go as a woman. And so I loved that.

Jason Blitman: 8:48

And it's interesting'cause even you saying that and just thinking about subverting expectations, you're giving examples of women dressing as men and going to war for adventure. a very simplified version of what you said, but me thinking too, it's oh, we don't really see a lot of stories of a man dressing as a woman for the sake of adventure. I think there's. Something to that too curious why we haven't, I'm sure I can unpack all the reasons why we haven't seen that, but

Victoria Redel: 9:22

We'd be here for a couple hours.

Jason Blitman: 9:24

I know, exactly. You said it's, it wasn't about sexuality, it was about gender and the book is very queer. And yet not, but very, but not, but very. And and. I don't, I'm not giving, I don't wanna give anything away, but I think me waffling like that makes sense. When you read the book and when you are experience the book, what was putting that on paper, like for you? Why was that important?

Victoria Redel: 9:53

I love it when I like it when characters have sex. I like it when I like when people have sex. So that's just, that's just a kind of and and and to allow, I think I wanted. I was interested in subverting expectations of the 17th century. So that's a big, was a big piece of it. And, m Maria Van Vic, although really like there, there are probably five details inside of this novel that are actual to Maria Van Vic's life. But so little. But those are like the six details that are known about her life. So I really had a great deal of freedom, but one of. The pronouncements that you'd say if you pulled up Wikipedia, is that the reason why Maria Van Stevic never married was because she was so devotional and chaste and I just thought, really, is that really the only reason? And what was the proof of that? The proof of that is her art has so much religious iconography, will all of the art of that period of time. All of the still lives, all of the Vanitas did. So that just seemed like malarkey to me. In which, and then the other fact is that she had an assistant Erta Peter Vines who was her assistant and paint an assistant. And they live together for, a lifetime. It doesn't take much to start to imagine. Firstly the necessary intimacies of a made to a master, for want of a better word for her employer employee employer but also the line at which that can shift. And and, for all sorts of reasons, for pure love, for desire, for for manipulation, for any range of possibilities. And homosexuality was outlawed in, in, in Amsterdam at that particular period of time. But we are, don't have to, spend two seconds of thinking to think were people gay? Yeah. Why not explore it inside of a novel? Why not let them, why not let them have a robust, and also the other piece of it is that, they had, there's a power relationship immediately set up inside that book of employee, employer or serv assistant and master painter. And and sex is a great sex mees with that, with power. In in, in the notion that just, it's unexpected what can happen. And it allows a power relationship to really change possibly for some people,

Jason Blitman: 12:33

no, of course. And it's funny, something that, that. We haven't taken. The next step to talk about is, yeah, there is this relationship and it does manifest in all sorts of ways, including sexually. But there is this really intense devotion and dedication and symbiotic, complicated relationship and almost like a Stockholm syndrome situation. And when that devotion becomes problematic versus understanding, I like want, I'm trying to say things in a roundabout way without giving anything away.

Victoria Redel: 13:14

It's hard. It's hard. Well, it, at what point does a person's integrity rise up? Their sense that you can be devoted to someone and not lose your integrity, but you can begin to so entirely ef face yourself. That it's that you, that it's becomes impossible. And many people do that for long periods of their life, but inside of this book. We also have that person becoming an artist. And so she's beginning to develop a self that needs to be reckoned with and needs to be seen as who she is, not as, not only as who she cares for.

Jason Blitman: 13:59

Sure. And it's interesting the way that the codependency sort of seeps into each other where, it's can I be such a good painter without my assistant? Can I be a good assistant without. The master, right? And at some points you're like, I just want to shake Erta and say, what the hell are you doing? And yet you also understand and So it's very complicated.

Victoria Redel: 14:55

And in that sense, Maria's a tricky character, but I. I at least I love her even with all of her complications. And her cruelties. I think we, that, that may be another gender aspect of the novel that we acknowledge and accept the sort of terrible male artist, in a way that we don't accept a terrible female artist. Or a brutal one. And she has some of that brutality in her ambition

Jason Blitman: 15:27

absolutely. And it's so interesting because we have modern examples of that, and I think we perhaps have less 17th century examples of that. But you look at something like the Devil Wears

Victoria Redel: 15:39

Uhhuh.

Jason Blitman: 15:40

right? And you're like, you look at these assistants and you're like, how could you tolerate this behavior? And you're like, oh wait, no. When I contextualize it there, there's no other way. Slash you understand why Miranda Priestly needed to do what And behave the way she behaved to get to where she Is. I mean, I listened To on three X speed all 48 hours of the Barbara Streisand

Victoria Redel: 16:06

Oh, wow. Huh.

Jason Blitman: 16:07

And it. You learn about what she had to tolerate in a man's world And how she persevered and what she did, you can justify her behavior. I don't know. I don't know that she's ever, she's not known necessarily to behave poorly. Um, but she's a diva. And when you learn what she had to go through, the diva status is of justified.

Victoria Redel: 16:35

Do we have a, we do. We have a male word for a diva.

Jason Blitman: 16:40

That's

Victoria Redel: 16:40

I don't know.

Jason Blitman: 16:41

An asshole, right? I don't know. That's that. What a question.

Victoria Redel: 16:47

We're both gonna be thinking about that one.

Jason Blitman: 16:49

Right. What is the Weinstein, what do you call him? A monster?

Victoria Redel: 16:57

There, yeah. I think they're sometimes called a monster. But do we call maybe now people do we call Picasso a monster? Do we call, the poorly behaved, the imperious male artists?

Jason Blitman: 17:13

It's interesting'cause the word monster has such a connotation because it's like. You think it kills things, It's evil. Whereas Diva is,

Victoria Redel: 17:25

Little more fabulous.

Jason Blitman: 17:27

it is more fabulous and like difficult, but like not gonna kill someone.

Victoria Redel: 17:31

right.

Jason Blitman: 17:32

Right? So it's it for that comparison alone. It's not right, but, But it is the first thing that comes to mind. Um, so that's very interesting. I know we're

Victoria Redel: 17:43

We're both gonna be, I'll be emailing, texting.

Jason Blitman: 17:46

I

Victoria Redel: 17:47

I got it. I got it.

Jason Blitman: 17:49

I can't

Victoria Redel: 17:49

gonna be parsing it out.

Jason Blitman: 17:51

But that's such an interesting question. And then, so thinking too, there's a very simple quote in the book that just says Beauty is transformation. And thinking about everything that we're talking about right now, that resonates with me too. What does. What does beauty mean? How can it transform you? Or a painting or an expectation or whatever? What does that mean to you?

Victoria Redel: 18:22

I, that's it. I love that sentence. But it's part of a paragraph that starts out to love color is to love decay,

Jason Blitman: 18:30

Yeah.

Victoria Redel: 18:31

and.

Jason Blitman: 18:32

Actually, so funny that you say that because I underlined both things and I was like what would I prefer to talk about? Or what, a, in a truncated time? The exact, yes. Yes. Exactly.

Victoria Redel: 18:43

And that's one of the, if you have aspects of a book that you get to, we keep weaving through and they hopefully do their job in that lane, but they'll hopefully resonate into the other lanes. Both are, those are both true. I hope for the characters as well as for the making of paint, which is where that sentence comes up. And to the 17th century, we don't have, you can't go in and buy a Windsor Newton tube of paint. You could buy these from people who were called color men. You could buy a bladder of paint. But generally in workshops and studios, you had assistants who made the paint. They bought the rock, they bought the minerals, they bought the plants, they bought the bugs and made the paint. And so you were seeing. Rot, that beauty comes out of rot. And then so out of something terrible comes something gorgeous. And out of that gorgeous, meaning paint out of dead bugs from Mexico, you're getting red paint. And then at with that red paint, you're creating something else. You're creating a flower, you're painting a flower. So it's that transformation and also that inside of this, that. That kind of beauty, whether it's knowledge or a changing self or the capacity to see things more clearly, which is what Peter Erta does through the novel. She be, she, they transform as a human. They don't know that they actualize, but they actualize they become their own. They become the subject of their story.

Jason Blitman: 20:19

Yeah. And over the course of. Not a

Victoria Redel: 20:22

But pretty much of a lifetime.

Jason Blitman: 20:24

but it does last a long time. You do learn a lot about yourself, back to the beauty is transformation thing from decay comes this beautiful thing. And I think there is an, it's like back to those Stockholm syndrome thing, right? From the complicated relationship comes

Victoria Redel: 20:39

right.

Jason Blitman: 20:40

right? And you don't necessarily get the art without the complicated relationship.

Victoria Redel: 20:46

Wouldn't it be nice if you could? Wouldn't that be easy peasy?

Jason Blitman: 20:50

Yeah. And then of course there's the question of what, how do you define art? What is art? What does it mean to be I'm not necessarily asking those questions of you because I don't know that they're.

Victoria Redel: 21:06

We can answer it.

Jason Blitman: 21:06

slash You'll have your own answer today and you'll have your own answer Tomorrow And

Victoria Redel: 21:11

different, right?

Jason Blitman: 21:12

yeah.

Victoria Redel: 21:13

I but inside the book, just as to be inside of there. One, oh. I had two thoughts at the same time, but one is, initially Maria keeps saying. To Peter. She always calls scared to Peter. She'll say, Peter, what do you see? What are you thinking? What do you know? And that. Invitation to that awakening of Peter's self. At first Peter's what do I see? I don't know. I see a hill. And Maria says no. What do you see? Observe it. And then it becomes clearer and then Peter begins to see. Light differently and the and the shape of a peach differently and the world get, gets more alive, more vibrant more beautiful. And so Maria invites it and then the results often. Gets in the way of their relation, to be invited to see has re to be invited to be a fuller person often bumps up. You use the word codependent, which I suppose they really, truly are. And it, it bucks against their codependency. It bucks against, she invites that of Peter, but the result doesn't necessarily work so well for Maria. So that's one piece of the artistry. But the other thing that I was thinking about was there's the kind of artist that Maria was, which was a very the idea was to make something so that you could not even see the paint line, to make something so clean. The hand was called actually clean the paint stroke so that you never saw a stroke, whereas. And that was becoming more and more the the ala mode, the painting of that time. Whereas Rembrandt for example, ha who could do that, like nobody's business also deployed what they called a rough stroke. And which is artistry, there's some discussion in the book about. Isn't that just lousy? Isn't he just ugh. A kind of peasant painter, I think, and so there's the question of what is art and two very different versions of it. So it's a way that we could be talking about what is an artist for years and not come up.

Jason Blitman: 23:25

It's so funny that we're talking today because just by happenstance, my husband and I were at the local art museum yesterday and I didn't even think about it until this moment. What a weird coincidence this is. But we, were looking at various paintings and some were these beautiful, quote unquote realistic landscapes and. You stand far enough away and they look like photographs and you get closer and you can see the brush strokes And we boiled it down after a long conversation of like how incredible that all of this is really shadow and light Sort of things that we're experiencing on a daily basis and what gives something dimension and texture and. I'm using that comparison because so much of, of what they're painting in IMU is uh, realism. Um, And so it made me think too about the conversation of a portrait versus a still life.

Victoria Redel: 24:27

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 24:28

What can you talk about the differences between those?

Victoria Redel: 24:32

if I can they were both still life painters or they painted what called also vanitas, which is like a, tableau, like the table with sumptuous grapes and and the what is it called? The sands of time, like the hourglass. And sometimes a skull, all of them had meaning, but those were usually commissioned by by a wealthy person really to show their goods, like the gold vase and the this and that. But then they'd throw in all the religious things to say, yes, I know this is all fleeting, and soon I will be at death store and I will have none of my worldly goods. But look at'em all, look how great they look right now. And women were again, they were excluded from the guild, the painter's guild, but they were also not allowed to be part of the sessions that men had where they painted the figure. We can, there are a couple of female artists that a little bit earlier are Esia, I forget how to pronounce her last name, who wa who painted the figure. But I. To, the there part of it, in that period of time in the still life was the love of goods. All the flowers that they're painting are import, most of them are imported. The tulip was an imported flower, so there were, they were, and the bouquets that they're painting are not. All spring flowers or all summer flowers, it was partly the decision to paint flowers that grew in different temperatures and from different places. So it was saying to those people, like, when we look at a still life, it's ah, a kind of boring thing of a bunch of flowers in a vase. But for them, it spoke to. The period of time they were living in and the vast travel that was happening the daily into the ports of Amsterdam were coming, all of these goods, the portrait the portrait was saying. I'm gonna commission you to paint the portrait of myself and my wife, and you're gonna see our our rubies on our, we're gonna, we're, it's gonna be a status piece. It says something about who we are and our class and wealth. You can the interesting thing also about that period of time was they began to break with that. And that's, that was part of Rembrandt's and Vermeer's genius was to have these paintings of, with Vermeer, the young maid opening the, the envelope or with, and with Rembrandt, it was, he was going into the streets. Drawing the washer women and drawing whomever, he was going into the Jewish quarter and drawing the Jews the Portuguese Jews. So they, it was a push for into the regular life. And the middle class was beginning for the first time to have art in their homes. So they were getting these little, small pictures. Did I answer your question or did I go far away?

Jason Blitman: 27:23

no, no, No. What's so interesting to me as a reader and not an art scholar I almost interpreted, I talk about symbiosis in this conversation a lot now, but th this sort of, as an artist, what it means for you to paint a portrait versus what it means for you to paint a still life. And how, my interpretation, some of it is that is, is a reminder of what your priorities are when you're painting each And how you're, what you're trying to elevate and who you're painting it for. And it really made me think too about the audience

Victoria Redel: 28:01

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 28:02

of each of art. And something that I hadn't ever really thought about before in terms of not just the literal differences But also this, the meaning of And how they can be interpreted spec, and particularly in that time.

Victoria Redel: 28:20

Painting, I suppose maybe I'm gonna say this and maybe we'll disagree with it after I say it, but to. To, especially in the book when a portrait, there is a moment in the book where a portrait, a double portrait gets painted and that's a relational moment, right? So the painter ha winds up having some sort of vibe, some feeling, a relationship with. The person that that they're painting where, you're reaching into the soul of that person. I guess maybe it's true that when you paint a flower, you're feeling the essence of floweriness, the essence of the soul of the tulip. It's a little d but I think it's different than when you paint, in the relationship between the artist and the subject. There's something going on.

Jason Blitman: 29:08

Absolutely. And I think I'm thinking what happens later, right? What, when an artist paints a flower, sure. They might not be tapping into the soul of the flower. But if it is the most beautiful flower they saw on their walk that The most beautiful day of the season, and the, and that and they're never going to experience a day quite like that, how to convey that through the flower. Versus you're painting a diva, you're painting a monster. And how do you remove that from the painting so that you can. So that the viewer, so that the your patron who's commissioning this painting doesn't see the piece of the pieces of them Don't wanna see, or that the audience, the viewer can interpret it in a way that is a positive thing or whatever. Right. So there is, that's I think what I find so interesting, whereas the a still life is, while again, they're not tapping into the soul of the thing, but they are able to. Again, my interpretation, they are able to capture its truest

Victoria Redel: 30:22

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 30:23

versus a portrait. You're giving them what they want.

Victoria Redel: 30:25

Yes. Maybe you're sneaking in some other stuff, but you're probably giving them what you want.'cause you're, it's there. It is. The bread and butter is, you're getting

Jason Blitman: 30:33

Well, it's funny, it's like the 17th century equivalent of a filter.

Victoria Redel: 30:37

You're not painting all the double chins. You gotta.

Jason Blitman: 30:40

Just one. So it's still real in quotes. You, so you talked about how at that point folks were owning art, or art was in their home. And I think one of my favorite lines slash epiphanies in the book is that. Art is And not ownership when it's in our home. And it's such a beautiful way of democratizing art, but also, we can't take it with us. So we, once we're gone, the art still And can go elsewhere. And so it's, it it is, it spends its time with us and is under our protection until.

Victoria Redel: 31:23

Till we're gone.

Jason Blitman: 31:25

Until we're gone. And I, and that's true, I think of books, of paintings, of all sorts of things. I have a very complicated feeling about folks who let's say, own important pieces of art in their homes and in private collections, because, it is, it becomes about status.

Victoria Redel: 31:49

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 31:49

And not about sharing the art, although, and sometimes though you have to wonder why was it painted in the

Victoria Redel: 31:55

So many of the paintings were painted for ownership, so many of the artists found their ability. Feed themselves by being owned by various, by the Medicis or being brought into various courts as the, the court painter. So there's a long history of owning in art and that's why, right? We love those beautiful, like beautiful sculpture parks where we can be out and among it now, those are, I've spent so many days in various outdoor sculpture, gardens, parks where I think this is so great just to walk through the woods and come upon a sculpture. What if all, you can't really do it with a painting, it would corrode, but but you, it's so great

Jason Blitman: 32:38

Yeah. No, but you, you walk into. A free museum, you walk into a gallery. That's the most amazing thing about New York galleries, and I think galleries in general that I think people don't necessarily realize is you don't have to pay

Victoria Redel: 32:50

You could just go in.

Jason Blitman: 32:52

You just walk into the galleries. If you're in New York City, walk around the Chelsea galleries, pop in, look around,

Victoria Redel: 32:59

It's been a long time. Nobody says get out.

Jason Blitman: 33:02

no.

Victoria Redel: 33:02

I, there used to be a on Madison Avenue in Antiquities Shop that had Greek and Roman. Objects. And I used to just love to go in there. For one thing, I loved all the Greek and Roman jewelry. I was really into it. But they would, I would look at a or a cup or something and the guy would and I could ask the guy a question and he was, you were getting a curated show. And then he'd say, you wanna hold it? And I'd say, are you sure? And he'd say don't drop it. Don't be a clutz. But yes, hold it. And so I would hold this, object that was BC or it was a beau. And it was amazing to me. It was, and that was just in a shop. And I went there a fair amount. I brought other friends there because I loved the place so much, and. I never bought a thing. I never bought a thing. They didn't care.

Jason Blitman: 34:03

Yeah, it's this very interesting, and again, at some point someone owned that

Victoria Redel: 34:08

yeah.

Jason Blitman: 34:09

that cup, that

Victoria Redel: 34:10

At some point, many of those things were functional people owned

Jason Blitman: 34:14

Right. Yeah, yeah,

Victoria Redel: 34:15

So that's a different thing, that's here it was functional and now it's rarefied. So that's a different aspect of life.

Jason Blitman: 34:22

Yeah. Paintings are less

Victoria Redel: 34:23

But yeah, it was. But when you sometimes see if you go to another great place to go or to the auction houses,'cause that's you see someone's collection, but you can often read the provenance of a painting. All the different places. All the different places where it's been owned before, they don't always give the address of the person, but you can learn it was in this person's, this collection and that collection and this museum and that collection. So it, it keeps moving around.

Jason Blitman: 34:53

And now something that I learned from a journalist, Bianca Boker. She has a book called Get the Picture, which is terrific. If

Victoria Redel: 35:01

again. Get the picture.

Jason Blitman: 35:03

get the picture by Bianca Boker. It's nonfiction and it's all, she really immerses herself in the art world. And she volunteers for an artist. She works at a gallery. She goes to Art Basel with a gallery and then wrote a book about her whole experience. One of the things that comes up is the fact that most will require someone to, if they wanna buy a painting for themselves or buy a piece of art for themselves, they have to also buy a piece of art for a museum.

Victoria Redel: 35:32

Wow. That's cool.

Jason Blitman: 35:35

Yeah.

Victoria Redel: 35:36

That's great.

Jason Blitman: 35:38

so depending on the status of the artist of the thing. So basically the idea is to democratize it,

Victoria Redel: 35:45

yeah. That's great.

Jason Blitman: 35:47

yeah.

Victoria Redel: 35:47

I read that

Jason Blitman: 35:47

fact. Oh, it's terrific. It's very good. I think you'll love it. For the person, and we touched on this at the beginning, but for the person who says, eh, historical fiction isn't really my thing. I don't know that I want to read this book for this book club, what would you say to them?

Victoria Redel: 36:02

The first thing is, I don't know if historical fiction is my thing, I never think, oh, I want it. It's not, it's never been a thought I've ever had. I wanna read a book that's historical fiction. I've never, I don't think about books that way. And I would argue that every single book we read, if I wanna apply that term, is historical fiction. We read a book about the moment. We're a novel, about the moment we're living in, right? Already. Already, the novels that came out about COVID are a kind of historical fiction. They encapsulate a moment that. That that we moved through and in and in, Lord, that we have a big world of books and a world of time. And in 40 years, a hundred years, a novel that came through from that period, from, this period of time would be considered historical fiction. So I don't but that said, I'm not writing a novel that takes place in 2025. But I do think that by entering a different world, we often are in the, we often see into the world we live in. And and we get to do away with received ideas about the world. That was versus, I think we have in some sense either superiority a sense like, oh, they, they didn't even have that and they didn't even have actual flush toilets. And look what an much more amazing world. Yes, there are many things that have advanced, but there are many ways in which that world. Was as complex and rich and beautiful as the one we're in. It's it, to me, it's like saying, I don't wanna read a book that takes place in another country,

Jason Blitman: 37:49

listen, I don't disagree with you, But it sometimes is hard. It's hard to look past or to tap into differently and there's something to be said about. Just imagine it takes place now because in the universe there are ways that it could, unfortunately.

Victoria Redel: 38:02

I'll tell you this though, on the other side of it I wrote this book, if in the number of years it takes to write a book I wrote this book, a lot of it during COVID, during lockdown and then, in whatever the semi lockdown we lived, lived in for a while and we all thought we'd never shake hands, we'd never kiss other people again. I remember someone saying I think. Kissing someone when you wel when you say hi to them, is that's over with. I was like, that's not over with dude. But I wrote this then and I loved for a moment stepping out of the life I was in to enter another world to be lost in another world. And there are many moments in our. In the world we're in right now, where I would like to be lost from this world that we're in. And and we do it in all sorts of healthy and unhealthy ways probably. But so you turn away from that page in the newspaper and you play Wordle instead. Somehow entering another land, that world that's sensuous and rich, I don't know. Sounds okay to me.

Jason Blitman: 39:06

Amen. And it's gonna make you wanna become a painter and it's gonna make you wanna make your own paint, which shocked me. I was like, Ooh, let's make our

Victoria Redel: 39:16

I did it. I went to a workshop. I I went to a work I had to learn, right? Some of it, this place offered a weekend workshop in making paint in the, as they did in the Renaissance. And so I took that workshop. It was really fun. I was the only non, visual artist in the room. I had a great time. It was great.

Jason Blitman: 39:36

That's so cool. Do you still have your paint?

Victoria Redel: 39:38

I do, I have, hang on one sec. Here's a jar of malachite.

Jason Blitman: 39:44

Cool

Victoria Redel: 39:45

Here's a jar of gall ink. You'll encounter gall ink in the book.

Jason Blitman: 39:49

Uhhuh.

Victoria Redel: 39:50

Here's a little bit of eggshell white, and I think this might be walnut ink, and I have somewhere up there as right. Yeah, it was really fun.

Jason Blitman: 40:02

It's funny'cause it made me, I was like, you're not getting a ton of paint when you're making it like this. So the, I was like, ugh, poor gta having to do this all the time. Right, exactly. So funny. Everyone. Get your copy of IMU by Victoria Riddell. Not only is it out now, but you could join the Gays Reading Book Club through altoa. The link is in the bio and in the show notes. I loved it so much. If you read the Safe Keep and like the Safe Keep, this is like a cousin of that book. There's a similar vibe. And I can't wait for everyone to read it'cause I loved it so

Victoria Redel: 40:39

Thank you so much. Thanks for it's so much fun to talk to you.

Jason Blitman: 40:43

So much fun to talk to you and the cover is gonna look so good on your shelf. So that's the bonus.

Victoria Redel: 40:49

I saw it in a bookstore for the first time yesterday. It looked really good. I was like, woo, in the wild.

Jason Blitman: 40:54

Everyone get your book. Join the book, club, join the conversation. Have so much fun and Victoria. Congratulations.

Victoria Redel: 41:02

much. Thanks.