Episode 63: Family in Fiction

In this week's episode, authors Kim Coleman Foote and Toni Ann Johnson talk about fictionalizing their families' difficult and messy history to create dark, heartfelt, and sometimes funny novels.

Kim Coleman Foote is the author of the acclaimed novel, Coleman Hill, which blends fact and fiction about her family’s Great Migration journey to suburban New Jersey, where Kim grew up. The novel was a finalist for the Carol Shields Prize and NAACP Image Award, among others, and was long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Additional honors include literature fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and Kimbilio; residencies at Hedgebrook, Yaddo, and MacDowell; and a Fulbright Fellowship to Ghana, where Kim conducted fieldwork for her second novel, Salt Water Sister. Forthcoming from SJP Lit in 2027, the novel explores women’s resistance to enslavement in the 1700s and a fight for reparations in the present day.

Toni Ann Johnson is the winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award for short fiction for Light Skin Gone to Waste, which was selected for the prize and edited by Roxane Gay. The book, a work of autobiographical fiction based on Johnson's family, was also shortlisted for the Saroyan Prize and nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work. Johnson's novella Homegoing (about the same family) won Accents Publishing's inaugural novella contest. Her novel Remedy for a Broken Angel earned an NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Literary Work by a Debut Author. Her newest book, But Where's Home? is Johnson's third installment of the "Arrington Family" saga, and won the Screen Door Press Prize for fiction. 

Resources:

“How to Kill Gra’ Coleman and Live to Tell about It (Vauxhall, NJ, c. 1949)”

Mad Men

Books:
A full list of the books and authors mentioned in this episode is available here.

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The Watchung Booksellers Podcast is produced by Kathryn Counsell and Marni Jessup and is recorded at Watchung Booksellers in Montclair, NJ. 

The show is edited by Kathryn Counsell.

Original music is composed and performed by Violet Mujica. Research and show notes by Caroline Shurtleff.

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Transcript

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[00:00:00] Marni: Hi everybody. Welcome back to the Watchung Booksellers podcast, where we bring you conversations from our bookstores, vast community of book professionals who talk about what they do for the love of books.

[00:00:10] Marni: Thanks for joining us. I'm Marni, and I'm here with my co-producer Catherine. Hello, Catherine. 

[00:00:15] Kathryn: Hello everybody. Hi Marni. 

[00:00:17] Marni: Hello. And this week we are talking about family and fiction. 

[00:00:22] Kathryn: Yeah. You know, we have all got those family secrets. The stuff, uh, no one talks about or you feel like you're not allowed to talk about or you have to wait until so and so is no longer walking this earth before you talk about, , and , some folks will write a memoir about it eventually, but our guests today have mined some of their families.

[00:00:45] Kathryn: Relatively dark history and shared it in fiction form and, um, they, they didn't wait. They took the risks and wrote what they needed to write as artists today, we welcome Kim Coleman foot, author of Coleman Hill and Tony Ann Johnson, author of the brand new release but wears home. 

[00:01:06] Marni: Kim lives in Montclair, but Tony Ann is now in la so we recorded this talk virtually, so be warned.

[00:01:12] Marni: The audio can sometimes be a little wifi affected,

[00:01:15] Marni: but you'll forget about all of that when they dive into how they fictionalized each of their family's history to create these incredibly heartfelt stories. first, let's talk about what we're reading. Catherine, what are you reading?

[00:01:26] Kathryn: Okay, first, I am still arranging the details on our first book club. Sorry everybody, it's just taking me a minute here. Uh, but we are planning to discuss Stoneyard Devotional by Charlotte Wood, and we're gonna host this on our substack page at Watchung Booksellers podcast. And we'll invite you to join in the conversation via chat or by sending in pre-written questions.

[00:01:50] Kathryn: You can, um. You can send those to the substack or you can just send them to us at WB podcast at Watchung books sellers.com. And, um, I finished this book and it, it has so much to unpack. I just thought it was really, um, really beautiful and I just feel like there's a lot to talk about. It's not a difficult read, but I, I took my time with it and it feels so personal and so weird and I, I kind of can't stop thinking about it.

[00:02:17] Kathryn: So I would look forward to. Discussing it with you guys. Um, but now I have moved on to my next book, which is The Calamity Club by Catherine Stockett. It's not coming out till May, uh, but I have an advanced copy and I'm, I'm digging into that. It's set in 1930s, Mississippi, and features two strong-willed women who take some outrageous risks.

[00:02:42] Kathryn: Um, you may remember Catherine Stockett from her. Bestselling book and hit movie, the help. Uh, she took her sweet time creating this next book. Uh, I think it was like 17 years maybe. Wow. Yeah. Um, and again, it's coming out in May, but I have a feeling it'll be worth the wait. Um, 

[00:03:01] Kathryn: and the Extra good news is that book is gonna be launched at the Montclair Literary Festival on Tuesday, May 5th, and tickets are on sale now, and , you can get them. On our website. Marni, how about you? What are you reading?

[00:03:15] Marni: I am reading our next pick for the, uh, New York Times Best 100 books of the 21st Century, , which is happening on, uh, Monday, February 23rd at 7:00 PM You're welcome to join us. You just have to register on our website. And the book we will be discussing is the Copen the Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove. Uh.

[00:03:36] Marni: Live sin. I hope I'm saying that correctly. It's a memoir, , in three parts and it's fantastic. Um, it's heartbreaking, but it's actually, really good and I definitely recommend it and we would love to have you at the book club. So come, um, yeah,

[00:03:50] Kathryn: that's great. You guys are really, um, I dunno, how many books have you done now? 10. 

[00:03:54] Marni: I think we've, no, we've done more, I think we've done more like. 13. But now what we're doing is, uh, we were going down from 100 down the list, but then we decided that would take too long to get to some of the titles. So we're actually jumping around the list.

[00:04:07] Marni: That's great. And we, we pick it as a group. We do like a random, uh, number generator. And that's actually fun to just, uh, jump around the list. 'cause there's so many favorites, but it's a long list, so. 

[00:04:18] Kathryn: Yeah. 

[00:04:18] Marni: Yeah. Yeah. It's making it That's fantastic. A little more exciting. 

[00:04:21] Kathryn: Yeah. So there is a lot of reading to discuss, a lot of book clubs to join. But for now, let's get to today's guests and hear all about their books. 

[00:04:34] Marni: Kim Coleman Foot is the author of the acclaimed novel Coleman Hill, which blends facts and fiction about her family's great migration journey to suburban New Jersey where Kim grew up.

[00:04:44] Marni: The novel was a finalist for the Carol Shields Prize and NAACP Image Award, among others, and was long listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. additional honors include literature fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, And the New York Foundation for the Arts. Residencies at Edgebrook, Yado and McDowell, and a Fulbright Fellowship to Ghana where Kim conducted field work for her second novel, saltwater sister, forthcoming from SJP Lit in 2027.

[00:05:14] Marni: The novel explores women's resistance to enslavement in the 17 hundreds and a fight for reparations in the present day. 

[00:05:22] Kathryn: And with her is Tony Ann Johnson. Tony Ann is the winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award for short fiction for light skin, gone to waist, which was selected for the prize and edited by Roxanne Gay. The book, a work of autobiographical fiction based on Johnson's family

[00:05:40] Kathryn: was also shortlisted for the Ian Prize, and nominated for an NAACP image award for outstanding literary work. Johnson Novella Homegoing. About the same family won accents publishings inaugural novella contest. Her novel Remedy for a Broken Angel

[00:05:57] Kathryn: earned an NAACP image award nomination for outstanding literary work by a debut author. Her newest book, but Wears Home is Johnson's third installment of the Arrington Family Saga and won the screen door Press prize for fiction. And listeners, I'm gonna mention that Tony Ann will be here to discuss, but where's home on Thursday, March 26th.

[00:06:19] Kathryn: So be sure to register and meet her in person. 

[00:06:23] Marni: Enjoy the conversation and we'll be back after to fill you in on what's coming up in the store. 

[00:06:31] Kim: Hi Tony. 

[00:06:36] Toni Ann: I'm happy to finally meet you in person. 

[00:06:39] Kim: Likewise, likewise. 

[00:06:43] Kim: I'm so glad you reached out to me because, um, I think I was mentioning to you that I found sense that a lot of poets, especially black poets, have done what we've done, fictionalizing their families, you know, through poetry, even with photographs and artifacts.

[00:06:57] Kim: But, , the only examples I could think of when I was doing my book was Alex Haley. And then, um mm-hmm. What's her name? Uh, for those, the son has loved, um, Rose Jordan. Um, I really love finding books like yours that are doing something similar. 

[00:07:15] Toni Ann: I think that, , Juno Diaz does that.

[00:07:17] Toni Ann: I mean, I could be wrong, but I think that his books are based on his real family too. Sure. 

[00:07:23] Kim: Sure. 

[00:07:25] Toni Ann: Um, although the after that they, they're less about the family and more about like the main character and his interactions with women. But the first one talks a lot about family, brother and, and dad. Okay. So, you know, Maisie hard also, 

[00:07:42] Kim: his book is also very similar.

[00:07:45] Toni Ann: And is her, I don't know. Is hers based 

[00:07:47] Kim: on her family or it's not? It's not. And she actually said that at some point because she does genealogy like I do. And at some point she was interested in potentially modeling it after a family. But I think, you know, she just wanted to go more into fiction. 

[00:08:02] Toni Ann: So I got the idea to do my book. From a colleague who was not actually a professional writer, he is a very good writer, and we started exchanging work and like the mid aughts, and he lives in Jamaica and he was writing his family's experience and I was like, wow, this is so good.

[00:08:23] Toni Ann: And then when I went to grad school, um, I was introduced to drown. Okay. And to, um. Sherman book, uh, the Lone Ranger Fight in Heaven. Mm-hmm. And I don't know. If that was based on his family, but it was, it was stories about growing up on the reservation. Mm-hmm. Or, and with, so, um, that was really interesting to me.

[00:08:45] Toni Ann: And so I did start to think, well, I do have a lot of events, you know, in my own family. And that was how I, I started working on the story. 

[00:08:57] Kim: Well, for me, I had been wanting to talk about my family for a long time because I had been hearing these stories since I was a child and they're always very colorful and vivid and you know, my parents were a lot older than most parents of kids my age.

[00:09:11] Kim: And so I, it was like going back in time, you know, and being able to see like the 1940s and fifties and, um. And so I was debating if I was gonna do nonfiction versus fiction because there was just so much that I didn't know. And like I said, I got interested in genealogy when I was in, , college and started researching my family.

[00:09:32] Kim: And even with that, there was still so many gaps. You know, between like what the records were saying versus what I knew from family stories. And then you have all the, the half truths and plain lies that get told, you know, in some of these family stories. So, you know, for me it became this journey of figuring out, I love research, I love historical research, figuring out like what the truth.

[00:09:55] Kim: Was, but then also figuring out the dynamics between my relatives. Like why did they treat each other so horribly? Some of them, especially my great, um, grandmother who was known as Greg Coleman, why, why was she like that? Why did she abuse her, her children, you know? Um, and so for me it also became this kind of psychological study to go into their minds and psyches and also their childhoods to try to figure out why they were the adults that they were.

[00:10:24] Toni Ann: And, uh, I wanted to say that with Koman, I appreciated that you included the trauma that she endured when she saw that man when she was still in the south. Uh, the man was lynched and he hadn't done anything, and I felt like that really helped. I still thought she was so mean and in the story how to Killman and Lyft tell about it.

[00:10:48] Toni Ann: Like I wanted to be in that story and help those kids. I had a little compassion for her because that was really traumatic. I mean, it was traumatic to read what happened, even though we didn't see like the actual lynching, but we knew that, you know, that it was happening. Um. So I thought you did a really good job of showing that, and then also with the, with the daughters.

[00:11:15] Toni Ann: Um, so Rose had her at, for a mother, uh, had Celia for a mother, was just so cruel to her. And so when Rose wasn't particularly a good mother, I felt like I could kind of understand why she didn't, she wasn't parented properly. Um. And, um, Bertha though, she, she was Lucy, her mother was really mean to her too, but she wasn't mean to her kids, but she just didn't parent them.

[00:11:43] Toni Ann: Yeah. Like, she just parented her second set of children, but not the first set. So that was hard, but I, but I could understand it. She, it was, she had trauma. They, they, all, those mothers had some degree of trauma. But gr Coleman was she. Pushed she was, 

[00:12:02] Kim: and I wanted to be right there with those kids myself, you know?

[00:12:05] Kim: 'cause that was always my, my big dream. I'm like, if I could invent the time machine and go back, I whoop her ass. Um, 

[00:12:12] Toni Ann: yeah. Maybe not kill her, but cause her to feel some pain. Yeah. Because she was just so, 

[00:12:18] Kim: and because

[00:12:18] Kim: it has ripple effects to my generation. Like people are still feeling the effects.

[00:12:22] Kim: Of it, you know? So, you know, it did a lot of damage. But you know, for me, like I said, I was also trying to figure out where it came from. Like, I don't believe that people are born evil, you know? And um mm-hmm. And that's why I was going back to everyone. You see them as a child. To see something that happened during their childhood because, you know, I, for me, life is not black and white.

[00:12:44] Kim: People aren't black and white. Literally, you know, um, there's, there are shades. There are shades. You know, what, what happens to someone? I wanted to show that, you know, you can be put in a complicated place and sometimes the choices that you have to make. Are not all good choices, right? What if you have the, the side between bad choices, you know, um 

[00:13:04] Toni Ann: mm-hmm.

[00:13:05] Kim: Ultimately it's not gonna be a good result, but, um, you know, that's the reality for a lot of people's lives. Um, but I wanna, I wanna really talk about your book as well, especially since you have a book coming out more recently. Um, I love the fact that you were able to do this with your more immediate.

[00:13:22] Kim: Family, because you're not talking about ancestors far removed. Like I've never met Greg Coleman. You know, I've never met a lot of the people that I'm writing about. So for me, you know, I could have some emotional distance from them, you know? Mm-hmm. And I was so curious, reading your book, so. Um, how, how were you able to write about your parents?

[00:13:44] Kim: Because, you know, I mean obviously there, there are still characters, you know, because you're writing what's called a novel or stories. Um, but I'm just curious how were you able to write about your parents in such a way where, you know, we see their humanity. We see their, the, the fun. Mm-hmm. The humor, humorous sides of them.

[00:14:05] Kim: Um, but we also see in the way that. They didn't parent well, their child. Right. Yeah. And, and I love, love this question. That's, you know, something that's been a burden for your life. So how do you, how do you, how did you do that? How did you create this? 

[00:14:19] Toni Ann: Well, my background is, I was trained as an actor. Oh. So I started acting when I was a teenager, even before, so my first acting class was age 12.

[00:14:31] Toni Ann: So at 14 I started studying method acting. Mm-hmm. And so I don't. Use emotional distance. I do the opposite. I become them. And so if I'm writing from their point of view, I'm not really considering how I feel. I'm considering what's going on in their head, what are, because if you're writing people who are doing mean things, they don't necessarily see it that way.

[00:14:59] Toni Ann: Mm-hmm. Because they're the hero of their stories, they're the protagonist. And so I try to put myself in. Their heads. Um, there's a, there's a couple of stories from Phil's point of view, um, and in the one that. Deals with the aftermath of Maddie's sexual assault. Mm-hmm. I did have to invent a lot of that, but I, because in real life, uh, he wasn't attuned to what happened mm-hmm.

[00:15:26] Toni Ann: Um, to, to the, to the assault. So that was a, an invention, but just using what I remembered about my father and my imagination, I was able to kind of map out his thought process. Okay. And with Velma. I recognized, uh, the trauma that she had, so she was abandoned, basically by her mother. Mm-hmm. Um, unwittingly, her mother didn't, didn't intend to do that, but circumstances led to her mother losing custody of her.

[00:15:55] Toni Ann: Sure. And she spent a lot of time alone, so she had childhood trauma. And I, you know, I took that into consideration and I added that into the book, even though. I knew that my mother did not want that revealed, um, because she was very ashamed of it. She didn't share it until I was an adult. I didn't even know that she had been adopted by another family.

[00:16:20] Toni Ann: Um, but without it, I felt like the book wasn't fair to her because we didn't understand. Why she was doing these unkind things, why she was behaving this way. Why, why was she so cruel? Mm-hmm. But I, I feel that it was unresolved trauma and in a way she was acting out her rage at her own mother. Mm-hmm. On her child not, not being conscious of it.

[00:16:46] Toni Ann: And so I, I tried to just have compassion for who she was and how she thought about herself. Okay. Rather than writing about her as me being angry with her. Sure. Um, I just felt like that wouldn't be fair. So I just, I just tried to be fair and I tried to really feel my way through the logic in her head.

[00:17:07] Toni Ann: Like she feels justified by the main things. You know that she does so 

[00:17:12] Kim: well. I just wanna say it's very admirable because I, I mean, I essentially did the same thing with my relatives, you know, where I literally would embody them and try to figure out, you know, what was going on in their heads, their bodies, their emotions, all that.

[00:17:25] Kim: But like, again, these were not my parents, you know? These weren't people who did something directly to me, you know? So, um, yeah. So, yeah, I think that's, that's some really deep. Compass and a lot more people. 

[00:17:39] Toni Ann: I felt though, when I read your book, like I felt for the character, so, so the way that you wrote it felt as if they had done it.

[00:17:49] Toni Ann: The writer. I mean, it was so close. It was so, it felt so real. And I, like, I found myself getting so emotional, particularly with Lucy and Stella. So, um, for people who haven't read the book, um, Stella is the mother-in-law of Lucy and she's in Lucy's house while Lucy's married too. Solomon, who is Stella's son, but then when Solomon's out of the picture, Lucy has to stand up for herself.

[00:18:16] Toni Ann: But Stella is so aggressive and dismissive and unkind to Lucy that I want, I wanted to punch Stella and the scene where. Lucy puts Stella out of her house was like one of my favorite scenes ever because I was just like cheering for her. I was like, you go. It was so much fun and it just felt like she was kind of living out like a fantasy of everybody who's been oppressed by somebody who gets back at them and stands up for themselves.

[00:18:50] Toni Ann: So. That was amazing. 

[00:18:53] Kim: Well, that was actually, that was a true story, you know, so I did have to invent, like I said, a lot of things, but that was a story that was handed down to me that my great-grandmother, um, kicked her mother-in-law out. And, you know, and that, that always fascinated me because just knowing about my great-grandmother, um, yeah, she, she also did some things that weren't great to her daughter, who was my grandmother.

[00:19:14] Kim: But at the same time, you know, all the stories that I have of her, um. Talk about her as this very sweet, loving, except for maybe my grandmother, but loving, kind person. And this is Lucy. This is Lucy. Lucy. Or Lucy? Lucy. Yeah. And I'm just thinking like, how did she live with this oppressive mother-in-law, you know, and how did she, how does she work at the nerve to kick her out of her house, you know?

[00:19:39] Kim: And so that whole thing was an exploration of, um. Of that whole, how that might have happened, you know? And I figured that her, the death of her husband, you know, I talk about my two, um, great grandmothers, the fact that. They came up to New Jersey from Alabama, from rural, you know, Jim Crow, Alabama to this also kind of rural New Jersey.

[00:20:01] Kim: And um, but then their husbands died within a couple of years, you know, and they had like four or five kids to raise on their own. And how did they manage, how did they survive? And that, and also they had two very different personalities. Right. And were somehow friends, which also was like, how did that happen?

[00:20:18] Toni Ann: Mm-hmm. 

[00:20:18] Kim: Um, because they were just night and day, but maybe the whole opposites attract thing. Um, and so I was really again, um, interested in exploring that tension with the mother-in-law. Also, considering that Celia, my other great-grandmother, would become the evil mother-in-law herself too. Yes. Right. So like it's, it's also convoluted and, but you know, to me that that's life.

[00:20:44] Kim: That's what makes life. Yeah, really. It's messy. It's messy. Which, you know, to me, history. Yeah, real history is messy. You know, it's not just kind of like, oh, this person was like basically a superhero or God, and we put them up on the pedestal. They never did anything wrong. They were just perfect and loving and caring, you know, and like, smart, beautiful.

[00:21:04] Kim: And it's like, no, life is not like that. Those people read about them. 

[00:21:10] Toni Ann: Yeah, before I read your book, I was thinking that I was worried that that's what it was gonna be. I was worried that it was gonna be about this family that was like so upstanding and like, you know, model black people and I was like, so and so when I started reading the book and it was as messy as my family, I was like, oh my God, I love this ord spirit.

[00:21:34] Kim: Oh my god. 

[00:21:35] Toni Ann: I love, I love like the, the trauma and the grit and the, the meanness. Like, and sometimes its amusing. Greg Coleman funny.

[00:21:50] Toni Ann: And she reminded me of Velma in some ways. Like the same sort of biting, 

[00:21:55] Kim: well, you know, 

[00:21:55] Toni Ann: nasty. 

[00:21:56] Kim: It's funny you have Velma because your Velma reminds me of my Verna, which is, which is a pseudonym. I'm like, oh my God, that name so fits, you know? 

[00:22:07] Toni Ann: Yeah. 

[00:22:07] Kim: But yeah, that. 

[00:22:08] Toni Ann: And Verna's, the one who 

[00:22:09] Kim: lies a lot right's.

[00:22:10] Kim: The one who's, who lies, you know, she, she had bipolar disorder, you know, so, which contributed to, all those things. But , she wasn't diagnosed until she was like in her seventies, I think, so before then, she just crazy and she lies and she is, you know, emotional and just, you know, all the negative things that you could say without any understanding of.

[00:22:33] Kim: What she was going through. Um, and even still, you know, bipolar disorder, like there's still, it's still stigmatized and people would understand. Um, so yeah, just, um, it's colorful, it's fun, but you know, at the same time, I guess, um, a question for you two along the same lines. You know, I was concerned when.

[00:22:53] Kim: Know, I was publishing some, um, excerpts. I considered them stories. I didn't consider this a novel to begin with. And you know, I know that's something that you've also dealt with because you're writing from different perspectives. Um, each chapter is a different, um, family member. But I was publishing individual stories and people were like, really just like flapping these up.

[00:23:14] Kim: Like, oh my God, this is so good. And I was getting concerned because, you know, this was after 2020, this was after George Floyd Black Lives Matter. And I was thinking like, oh wait a second, because it's mostly white. You know, editors and, and magazines that are interested, are they thinking like, oh, because black trauma is kind of this hot topic now, and like, do they think that black families are supposed to be like extremely messy and dysfunctional and abusive?

[00:23:42] Kim: You know, it's like this is this, is this why we're giving this so much attention because we think this is the way that all. You know, black families are, and so I wanted to get ahead of the curve and put out the message that like, no, this is not necessarily like the standard black family.

[00:23:59] Kim: But I did wanna talk about trauma because I think, you know, trauma extending from slavery, like we still have not acknowledged as a country the trauma of slavery. Um, and obviously so much, right? 

[00:24:10] Toni Ann: And the lie of black inferiority, 

[00:24:12] Kim: the lie of black inferiority, the, the lie of black. You know, everything. Right?

[00:24:18] Kim: And so, um, mm-hmm. So I wanted to put that out there and make these connections, um, with slavery in terms of like the abuse and the colorism and, you know, people, people, mm-hmm. Just not liking someone within your own race because your hair is straight or your hair is nappy, or your skin is dark, your skin is like, yeah.

[00:24:37] Kim: You know? So I wanted to really, um. You know, put those things out there and, and including also the self hatred, you know, coming out of that. Yeah. Um. So I don't know if you had any concerns about that with your own work. I mean, obviously with yours, you know, the, the level of trauma is not necessarily the same as Coleman Hill, but you know, there is like, you know, the parental neglect that happens and you know, obviously there's that.

[00:25:02] Toni Ann: I really didn't. I, um, I felt like what I was doing was something that I hadn't seen other people do write about, because I feel like the, the experience, so my family's experience was my father was highly educated. He had two master's degrees and a PhD, and moved to an area that while there were a few rich people and a few, um, educated.

[00:25:30] Toni Ann: Professionals. Um, it was a by and large working class community with, filled with people who were firemen and, um, New York City firemen and New York City cops and people who didn't go to college and. Monroe, New York. You know, people, when they read the book, they assume that it's a suburb, but when my parents arrived there in the sixties, it was rural.

[00:25:55] Toni Ann: So up the street were cows. There was a farm, like, I didn't include that. But if you look at the history of Monroe, um, it was known for cheese. There was, there was dairy farm, you know, so these were, these were people who, you know, almost were almost like Appalachia. Um. And so I didn't, so my, my family story, you know, my parents being middle class, my father being educated.

[00:26:21] Toni Ann: The class dynamic was different. So we were upper middle class Sure. Or would be considered upper middle class in that environment. Um, and other people were like working class and there were, there were some people that were, you know, the same socioeconomically, but mostly not. So the kids that Maddie's playing with in her neighborhood, who call her the N word, their families aren't, you know, well to do.

[00:26:44] Toni Ann: Mm-hmm. Or, and they don't have, um, you know, good. Educational backgrounds like, but they still look at her as second class. Mm-hmm. Um, in that environment because she's not white. And so that was, I was more interested in that and also showing that my parents lived. Very similarly to a white couple. Mm-hmm.

[00:27:07] Toni Ann: In that environment, they socialized with white people. My father had affairs with white women. My mother had a business. They weren't people that were relegating themselves to the black experience. They were looking to have a human experience in, in a place where they were, you know. Wildly in the minority.

[00:27:30] Toni Ann: There were, you know, a handful of other black people. One was a professional, there was a, a dentist there. He is mentioned in the forthcoming book. I don't think I mentioned him in the first book, but the, you know, it was more like if you've, I don't know if you've ever read Updyke, but that he's like in the northeast Connecticut.

[00:27:46] Toni Ann: But it's a very sort of. Upper middle class, um, world with tennis and drinking and socializing and infidelity, and that's, that's the world that my parents were in. So my dad was, was more like Don Draper in Mad Men than, than like a typical, you know, or a kind of black male character that I've seen in fiction before.

[00:28:11] Toni Ann: So I was trying to do something different and I couldn't worry about. The whole trauma element, um, because that wasn't even my focus. I mean, it was there, but because it was part of the experience in, in the family. But I, but I was looking at like, these are, this is a different type of story. Um. In a different part of the world.

[00:28:35] Toni Ann: So it's not, you know, we're not in the, in the south. Um, there, there isn't a connection to the deep south or to slavery. Although my great-grandfather was born into slavery, but my family was by and large like from the northeast. So my. My father's grandmother was a descendant, I believe, um, of slaves because her last name was Van Wagner and they were a northeastern slave holding family.

[00:29:02] Toni Ann: I think they extended from like the New York into the Midwest. Um, but I, I haven't found confirmation of that, but I, I like, what else could it be like that's her last name. You know, we want, there's no Dutch in my dna. Yeah. So, no. It was just different and, and I started writing these stories before, um, George Floyd.

[00:29:23] Toni Ann: Mm-hmm. So I started writing these stories in graduate school in 2007. Well, so did I. That's the first iteration of the book. 

[00:29:31] Kim: I said, so did I, I mean, I've been writing it for a long time. I started in grad school. I think that was like, probably like 2003. Or 2004. 

[00:29:41] Toni Ann: Yeah. 

[00:29:41] Kim: Yeah. So I mean that, you know, for me it wasn't on my mind.

[00:29:44] Kim: I wasn't thinking in that way. I was a concerned what others might, you know, try to put on it. Um, you know, because I'd heard. Yeah. 

[00:29:51] Toni Ann: But I do, I do empathize with that, with that concern though. Mm-hmm. Well, because 

[00:29:56] Kim: even from black people know, I've heard black people say like, oh God, another book about slavery.

[00:30:00] Kim: My next book is about slavery, you know, and it's like. Well, I'm not, I'm not putting out this book to retraumatize people. That's not my intention. You know, again, it's showing these linkages, you know, between the past and the present, that there's still things in the present that we do, you know, that are kind of messed up and let's reexamine that.

[00:30:18] Kim: Yeah. And think about how we want to, you know, raise the next generation. Um, but going back to your book, talk about the evolution , because, um, you know, when I, 

[00:30:28] Toni Ann: it's such a long story.

[00:30:30] Kim: Have we have time and it's, you know, originally. 

[00:30:36] Toni Ann: Originally, um, there were three. So I've, I've, now I have three books that were originally one long 

[00:30:44] Kim: mm-hmm. 

[00:30:44] Toni Ann: Book that I worked. On with an agent for, for five years. Mm-hmm. Um, so this is after grad school. Um, I was still working on the stories and publishing them in journals and stuff, but the first iteration of the book was just a story collection, and it was mostly the stories that were in.

[00:31:03] Toni Ann: Light skin gone to waist. Okay. That was close to the original, like that was my grad school thesis project. Okay. But then after I started working with this agent, she wanted to see more points of view. Oh. So I added different points of view and I added, um, the point of view of that white housekeeper so powerful.

[00:31:22] Toni Ann: Wilma has a white House, so 

[00:31:23] Kim: powerful. 

[00:31:24] Toni Ann: Um, so I added that. Yeah. And in, in, but where's home? I added the neighbor's point of view. So the book swelled like. When I finished the book for the agent, it was like almost 500 pages. Wow. It was like 498 pages and she thought it was great and she sent it out and um, and it was just too much.

[00:31:44] Toni Ann: So editors said, you know, this is unwieldy. And, and another editor said, well, it's just like, what is the arc of the, of the book? It doesn't really have cause effect. It cause and effect. It's so episodic and, and I. I didn't disagree, uh, because I didn't originally conceive it as the novel that the agent wanted to spell it as, so she didn't want it to be a story collection.

[00:32:09] Toni Ann: It was more like. Macy's book, which is like, you know, has spans a lot of time and it, and it was full, but hers worked as a novel. Mm-hmm. Um, mine didn't. And so when I, after five years taking all of these notes and then she sent the book to big five editors and they all passed. I was so. I was so angry and so depressed and defeated, and I was on a writing group, um, zoom Room during the pandemic.

[00:32:40] Toni Ann: And one of the people that I was, um, on there with, um, Cynthia Bond, who's an amazing writer, she said, well, why don't you just look at poets and writers and see like where you might be able to place some of the stories. And that's where I saw the call for the Flannery O'Connor Award. So I, and that, and it was Roxanne Gay who was the judge.

[00:32:58] Toni Ann: So I saw that I had a little bit of time and uh, but the word count limit was 75,000 words and mine was 150,000 words. So I cut out half the book. I cut there, there were two novellas in it. I cut both of them out. One was published as a book called Homegoing. Oh, I see. That came out in. And that was also published as a result of a contest.

[00:33:21] Toni Ann: But I, I slapped the book back together, focused on Maddy, and then submitted it to the Flannery O'Connor Award. And I, shockingly, I won. I thought, oh, there's so missing. It's never gonna win. But I just wanted to get my work in front of Roxanne Gay. But then I won. I was like, okay. So like that became that book.

[00:33:39] Toni Ann: Um, and then I had all the other stories left over that hadn't, you know, been placed anywhere. And so I, I was like, well, maybe I can just make another book out of this. And. Figure out a different theme. So I focused on, so that the idea of home and creating home and what is home and, and I added a few stories and then when I, I won another contest.

[00:34:00] Toni Ann: Mm-hmm. And that's how that got published. I won the screen door press prize and Crystal Wilkinson asked me to start the book with more like an introductory story. Mm-hmm. So I added that. I added some Maddie stories in the middle and I rewrote, um, the novella that's included. Um, and so that became the second book.

[00:34:22] Toni Ann: But they, they, they are in conversation with each other. Mm-hmm. But they also sort of both cover the same time period, although the second book, but where's home third, I should say, goes farther into the future. Okay. So. 

[00:34:38] Kim: Yeah, it was a long process. That's fascinating. Well, you know, I've also had a long process with my second book, which we won't cover because that's a whole, it'll take probably an hour, just talk about it.

[00:34:47] Kim: But, um, I think it's important to know the backs, stories of these books, you know, especially with the publishing industry and all the politics of the publishing industry. 'cause when you say like, oh, too long and all of this, it makes me think of, um, Sandra Cisneros, um, Carmelo, that novel that she published.

[00:35:05] Kim: A 

[00:35:06] Toni Ann: novel 

[00:35:06] Kim: in story? It's huge, huge novel in stories. Oh, okay. Um, yeah, 

[00:35:10] Toni Ann: but she, 

[00:35:12] Kim: there you go. 

[00:35:14] Toni Ann: Knew it. 

[00:35:14] Kim: And so it was funny because actually went to a reading that she did when that book came out and she was saying, 'cause you know her, she's done poetry, short stories, like very thin.

[00:35:22] Kim: And the song is like, well, I've now done this huge long book, you know, and, you know, but, um. Yeah, she San Cisneros, right. But, um, it's just so amazing to me, um, because good literature is ultimately good literature, right? Doesn't matter whose name is on it. Obviously it matters to the buyers and the public, but good literature is good literature and I think, you know, um, reading Light Skin Gone to Waste It, it's good literature.

[00:35:48] Kim: And the thing is, you know, when I, when I look at my own book, you know, which had a similar, um, issue with, you know, I again thought it was stories, you know, but then my publishing team and my agent were kind of. Swaying me towards considering as a, as a novel, which now I'm a little bit more mm-hmm. Um, comfortable with that label.

[00:36:06] Kim: Um, just because of the way that I wrote it, you know, because even though I was considering these stories, and not even necessarily short stories, because, you know, um, I respect short story as a form and I have not written short stories since I was in college, you know? And so like even when I was writing Coleman Hill, I had to tell myself, these are just stories.

[00:36:27] Kim: I didn't want the pressure and expectation of, well, what's a sure story? I don't know how to write a sure story. Like just tell a story. 

[00:36:34] Toni Ann: Oh my God. Yes you do. 

[00:36:35] Kim: Well, thank you. But 

[00:36:37] Toni Ann: your stories are 

[00:36:37] Kim: amazing, but like I don't, I dunno how to write a story. And these came out, you know, initially. Non chronologically, like all over the place.

[00:36:45] Kim: And my writing group was getting confused, and so I just decided to make everything chronologic and that worked for them, you know? But then the way that I structured it, I realized, um, you know, it doesn't necessarily have an arc, you know, as like a traditional novel. My next novel, that's what I've been working on for years and years.

[00:37:03] Kim: It has a traditional arc, um, even though it has multiple, um, perspectives, but you know, the way that it's structured, that you can't read these stories out of order. Know, and for me that became the mark of, okay, this is a novel. Mm-hmm. I can feel comfortable calling it a novel. Um, but I feel like Light Skin gone to waste having read that.

[00:37:23] Kim: Um, it very much felt like a book that could be called a novel in the same sense. Yeah. Um. And should be getting all the accolades, you know, that, that these other books are getting. Thank you. Um, but yeah, I was frustrated hearing your, your story, um, with the ING route because, um, 

[00:37:42] Toni Ann: I, I tried to figure out an arc.

[00:37:44] Kim: Yeah. 

[00:37:44] Toni Ann: So I made the Arc Maddie's story, so I made it. Um, so, so the. Her relationship with Velma didn't resolve mm-hmm. In the book, but her relationship with Tobias kind of resolved. That was So Tobias was like her first heart rate. 

[00:38:02] Kim: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:38:03] Toni Ann: Yeah. So he was her first heartbreak. And so the last story in the book is her kind of forgiving, making peace with him.

[00:38:11] Toni Ann: Yes. And in, but where's home? The, the arc is more about the fam the spiritual journey of the family. Mm-hmm. So the family does have so much dysfunction and toxicity. Mm-hmm. Um, but it. And, and it's, you know, very present throughout. There's a, there's a, a two story piece where Maddie is dealing with, um, the violence from her mother.

[00:38:36] Toni Ann: Um. And coming to terms with that, and Maddie ends up going no contact with Velma, so it's never gonna resolve because she just withdraws. But it's linked to this earlier event where Velma is very cruel to Maddie hits her, hurts her and Maddie at eight years old says. If you are not nicer to me when you get old, I'm gonna stick you in the home and leave you there.

[00:39:03] Toni Ann: And she doesn't even really know where this comes from, but the second story answers that. Mm-hmm. So it's like her future self goes back and gives her this sustenance to stand up to her mother. Um, but then at the end we hear from Emily, who's Phil's mother mm-hmm. After she's died and we get, um.

[00:39:25] Toni Ann: We get more of a hopeful resolution. But the first story that Crystal asked me to write what? This introduction, I made it Maddie before she was born. Yeah, I love that. So Maddie on the other side and, and I made her Velma's mother in her previous. Incarnation. And so she feels like she has to go back to make things right, because she messed up before.

[00:39:50] Toni Ann: And so it's like, I'm trying to say that it's nobody's fault. Like yes, Velma's mean, but Velma was mean because of what happened to her. Yes. And if that, maybe that's Maddie's karma, you know, maybe he just wasn't gonna get the warm, fuzzy mother because she wasn't the warm, fuzzy mother when she mothered.

[00:40:10] Toni Ann: Um, so anyway, it's kind of, I mean, I thought it was the weirdest thing I'd, I'd ever like, 

[00:40:14] Kim: but can I also say, can I just also interject and say It was funny, you know, like even reading it, it was funny because, you know, the fact that, you know, thinking of a character as a spirit. You know, and saying like, mm-hmm I wanna go back and, you know, be the child and kind of rescue my daughter and the spirit, her guides were saying, mm-hmm.

[00:40:33] Kim: Yeah, that's not a good idea, honey. You can go back if you wanna, you know, so I was, it was, it was funny at the same time, even though yes, it was intense and. But I, I love that. 

[00:40:45] Toni Ann: I'm glad. I mean, it's like, you know, I do try to be entertaining. Like I don't wanna just write, oh, whoa is me, my life was so hard.

[00:40:54] Toni Ann: Like, that's boring. Like, I do try to infuse humor as you did even in the harshest. Violence like me, there's, there's levity. You know, and, and I do feel like that, like you are aware when you're writing that you're entertaining. Yes. It, you're not just writing to like, exercise, whatever your family's history is.

[00:41:14] Toni Ann: Like 

[00:41:15] Kim: you're my, my, my work is not trauma porn. Trauma porn is unrelenting abuse, horror, suffering. Like everything is just horrible and bad. And it's like, no. And then you laugh and then you laughed about it. And that might be sick. I might be sick in some way, but you laughed about it and there was something funny in that, you know?

[00:41:31] Kim: And I always think even of myself, like things that, you know, when I have kind of horrible experiences and in that moment you would never laugh and you just wanna like rage and hurt someone uhhuh. And then afterwards there's like something funny about aspects of it in a way, you know? So that's, yeah. But I, I think, 

[00:41:49] Toni Ann: and your craft, like I, I love your, your approach.

[00:41:52] Toni Ann: Um, all the voices you made, all the voices distinct, and you do second person, first person, third person, um, first person, plural. Like there's everything in there. And it's just so, it's just so well written. It's a very sophisticatedly approached work, you know, by, by a craft standard. Thank you.

[00:42:14] Toni Ann: You know, it's just really well done. 

[00:42:15] Kim: And likewise again, 

[00:42:17] Toni Ann: and I, I, 

[00:42:18] Kim: I said likewise again for yours because you use the same, um, techniques. Uh, for me it was kind. 

[00:42:24] Toni Ann: I do, and that's why I loved your work so much because I was like, oh my God, this is, so, I like, it's my favorite thing. Yeah. I love when I hear different voices.

[00:42:33] Toni Ann: I, I just, it so. I listened to the audiobook of your book, and, um, Bonnie Turin does a lot of the narration and it's, oh, I wanted to ask you if you've ever studied music, because it's so musical. I love, it's rhythmic fun.

[00:42:54] Toni Ann: It, it was like, it was like listening to music. I 

[00:42:56] Kim: have to say, I think my poet friends, all the poet friends I've had in life, you know, to, to make me more attentive. To music because I actually started writing fiction. Oh God. I say my first story when I was about seven years old and I never stopped writing fiction.

[00:43:10] Kim: Wow. Since then. And I used to write a lot of like teen psychological thrillers when I was in high school. Not a sensitive to language. It was totally genre, you know? But my plots were amazing. I still go back and look at those books and I'm like. I'm like, the writing is kind of cringey, but I keep turning to pages.

[00:43:28] Kim: You know, there's cliffhangers. I'm like, 

[00:43:29] Toni Ann: you should rewrite 

[00:43:30] Kim: them as I, I do, I do wanna revisit some of those, but, you know, but the thing is, having so many poet friends, like for, for years, it was really hard to find a serious fiction writer friend. And I think just because novels are so really hard to write, you know, um, poet poetry is, you know, it's shorter.

[00:43:46] Kim: Not saying not to minimize the craft, because I know poets who take years, you know, just to finish a poem, but. Um, you know, there are lots more people calling themselves poets out there than like, I'm a novelist. Um, and so, you know, my poet friends would read my fiction and they'd be like, oh my God, I just can't get past the sentence.

[00:44:06] Kim: It's just like, and I'm like, you know, there's like 50 pages, please get past the sentence, you know, and they're like, but I need to taste, I need to taste it. I can't taste this word. And I'm just like. Oh my god. What? Oh wait. But you know, like that, that kind of built in the sensibility for me. And I would say like actually for me, the first novel that I had that experience where it was, 'cause I'm a storyteller, you know, I love the story.

[00:44:33] Kim: I love the words too. But it's also about telling a story with that arc, with the character development, all that, the atmosphere. Mm-hmm. And so for me, um, the first book I remember reading, I was actually in my MFA program. So again, probably like. 2003. 2004 was iron Daddy Roy's the God of small things. It was so, oh, I love beautifully poetically written and like at the sa and it was also kind of like a story, you know, a novel and stories kind of feel, but like it was so beautifully written, but at the same time you got a deep sense of like story, story development.

[00:45:07] Kim: And so I was like, oh, you can actually merge this kind of thing. So my writing over the years kind of developed more of that. Kind of poetic, rhythmic quality and you know, I don't actually read mm-hmm. My stuff out loud. I know a lot of people do, but I have a sense in my ear, like I'm always tweaking sentences because I'm like, this doesn't sound right to me.

[00:45:26] Kim: So yeah, there's always musicality. Mm-hmm. As I'm writing. 

[00:45:30] Toni Ann: Yeah. 

[00:45:30] Kim: And 

[00:45:31] Toni Ann: yeah, so I did study music a little bit. Okay. I studied singing. Okay. And I also had a poetry phase. That's right. Um, and so, yeah, so same like I, I hear the rhythms in the sentence and one of the like hard things about like the copy edit process is, you know, they wanna fix it and sometimes no, it's supposed to be like that because that's how people 

[00:45:53] Kim: talk.

[00:45:53] Kim: Exactly. Or you have to challenge a word because it's the rhythm not 

[00:45:56] Toni Ann: correct. 

[00:45:56] Kim: Yeah, no, I appreciate about that. About your, yeah. So 

[00:45:59] Toni Ann: I'm really sensitive to 

[00:46:00] Kim: that. Yeah, I appreciate about that. About your work as well, because the sentences flow. And for me, since I'm a person who's attuned to rhythm, you know, like I can read, I can read popular fiction, but it's not my preference these days because again, my, my taste has moved towards more kind of poetic writing.

[00:46:18] Kim: Um, but you know, when I do find something that's lyric like, or you know, as I'm reading books, a lot of contemporary fiction especially, I'm always kind of editing in my head like, oh, why they put this word in here and this, this sentence feels off. And yours, I have to say, was one of the few books. That I have read in like so long, you know, contemporary fiction where I was not editing.

[00:46:39] Kim: I could take my editor's cap off and I could just thank you. Like it started with your father riding in the car and I'm just riding along with him and flowing. And like literally devoured that book, kept her. I'm like, oh my God, this is so good. This is so good. So, you know, but it was like I could just flow because I'm not stopping to think like of the structure, like, oh, this word or this sentence, or she repeated this word over here and that's jarring.

[00:47:01] Kim: And what does that mean when you're repeating stuff, you know? So, yeah. Mm-hmm. A lot of fangirling right back at you. 

[00:47:09] Kim: I just wanted to ask you quickly, 'cause this is a question that I always get about , Coleman Hill.

[00:47:13] Kim: How has your family reacted to your books? 

[00:47:17] Toni Ann: Oh, that's interesting. So the phone, um, I have a small family. My father's deceased. Okay. He, he died in 2014. Um, but we really, it, the family is really small. So I have extended cousins. Um, I don't think they read it. I have one cousin. Who I know reads my work. And she also is a writer and she also wrote a book about her family.

[00:47:39] Toni Ann: So she wrote the book, the officer's daughter that came out from Harper Collins in 2022 or 2023, and that is about her experience when our cousin got murdered and her father, my father's brother, was a, a. Parole officer and our cousin's father was a New York City detective. Um, so it's a different branch of the family, but this, you know, but our family, um, and so she reads my work, but my sister said she doesn't read it.

[00:48:10] Toni Ann: Um, my niece has never said that she's read it. I don't talk to my mother and my dad is. So I hear from the cousin who reads my books, snippets of my mother's perspective, and my mother just hates that I, that I've written books about her. Oh, wow. She thinks they're all about her, of course, because she's a narcissist.

[00:48:35] Toni Ann: So that's how they do Everything's about her. Um, but I, you know. What am I gonna do? I'm an artist. I'm a writer. Like, I've, like, I'm driven to, to write about my experience. And so that's what I did and 

[00:48:51] Kim: yeah. Okay. 

[00:48:52] Toni Ann: I don't worry, I just don't worry about it. Um, yeah, I don't, I don't think my ex my, like, larger family, like, has read it.

[00:49:01] Toni Ann: So there really isn't anybody else. Like that's, you know, I waited so long, my mother's 94. So if I had written this like even 20 years ago, it would've been embarrassing to her, but her friends are dead.

[00:49:12] Toni Ann: Sure. So there is no reason for her to be embarrassed anymore about her authentic experience. That's, that's all I can say. But what about you? Um, 

[00:49:23] Kim: similar. Similar where, um, you know, not. Definitely not everyone who's living and who's connected. Even people carrying the names have read it. Um, but you know, I would say, I would say several more in my family probably than in yours have read it.

[00:49:38] Kim: And you know, so far the feedback has all been positive. Um, like I said in my situation, you know, there, most of the people I'm writing about passed away way before I started writing the book, um, or way before the book even came out. So I didn't necessarily have like. You know, some of the same issues about people seeing themselves in the book.

[00:49:58] Kim: Um. 

[00:49:58] Toni Ann: Mm-hmm. 

[00:49:59] Kim: But yeah, so far, so, so far, so good. 

[00:50:03] Toni Ann: Good. Yeah, I'm at the age Kim, where I don't need people to respond positively to it. Yeah. I, you know, I would hope that they do. Yeah. But I'm just doing my work, 

[00:50:15] Kim: just, yeah. And I, I don't, I don't need the positive response. Like, I was anticipating that someone might be, you know, pissed off or angry or whatever, and, and wondering like, well, what do I do with that?

[00:50:24] Kim: But like, but I think, again, for me, the, the things in my family, um. They're worth mentioning because it's not just about my family, it's about others as well. And not even talking about just black families, right? Because trauma and all these kind of dysfunctions happen in all families, right? Um, and so just, you know, if someone could recognize themselves.

[00:50:45] Kim: And their family and say like, oh, actually what we consider normal to be like abusing each other and hurting each other. Actually, that's not, that's not the way that we have to be. Right? And so for me, that, that was the value of telling these stories because my family, um. Like I always say how every Christmas dinner, Christmas is coming up, Thanksgiving's coming up, you know, be family dinners, and they tell the same stories over and over again about the trauma and abuse, and they're like, oh, nobody wants to hear the story.

[00:51:14] Kim: I'm like, actually, it's very entertaining, you know? But beyond the entertainment factor, there is also a lesson in that, you know? And so I think. Absolutely people can pick up on, and that's why I'm telling these stories, not to just say like, oh, look at this horrible phrase. I think 

[00:51:29] Toni Ann: healing 

[00:51:29] Kim: my family 

[00:51:30] Toni Ann: in, in you telling that I feel like there's like an a component that would allow a reader to, to.

[00:51:37] Toni Ann: Find some measure of healing in it because you can, you, you can see the dysfunction. Yes. 

[00:51:43] Kim: Well, 

[00:51:43] Toni Ann: and the toxicity and it gi like if it's not them, 

[00:51:47] Kim: some 

[00:51:48] Toni Ann: people can, 

[00:51:49] Kim: I think other people, I think a lot of people are still living with the blinders on because again, it's just been normalized dysfunction and abuse and all that has just been normalized in a lot of families,

[00:51:59] Kim: you know, early on when I was thinking like, oh my God, are people gonna interpret this as as trauma porn? Like, did I do too much with the abuse? And I saw this black female, I forget her name, she's a comedian, and she was talking about how like she had this boyfriend, like, you know, I think her mother had been physically abused.

[00:52:16] Kim: She grew up witnessing her mother and her boyfriend shot her in the head. He shot her in the head and thank God she lived to tell about it, but he shot her in the head and she's like, that must mean he loves me that much more. 'cause he shot me in the head and I was just like, oh my God. You know? So 

[00:52:33] Toni Ann: Did she say that as a 

[00:52:34] Kim: joke?

[00:52:34] Kim: No. Like that's what she actually believed at the time. Like she's gotten past that and realizes, but that's how deep dysfunction can go. That you can literally be shot in the head. 

[00:52:44] Toni Ann: Yeah. 

[00:52:45] Kim: And think that someone loves you even that much more because they shot. So, you know. No, I think people still, again, live with the dysfunction, don't see it, you know, and so that's why I wrote this book.

[00:52:55] Kim: I wrote it for my family to see it. 

[00:52:57] Toni Ann: Yeah. 

[00:52:57] Kim: But it wasn't just for my family, it was for other people as well to say like, wake up. Wake up. This is not how it, it can be a whole different way 

[00:53:05] Toni Ann: right 

[00:53:06] Kim: than this. 

[00:53:07] Toni Ann: And that's how I received it. I received it as like shining a light on dysfunction and saying, this is a cautionary tale.

[00:53:13] Toni Ann: Like, do better. 

[00:53:15] Kim: Yes. 

[00:53:15] Toni Ann: Be better. You know? 

[00:53:16] Kim: Exactly. 

[00:53:17] Toni Ann: I think we're supposed to recommend a couple of books.

[00:53:20] Toni Ann: You go first. Okay. Well, I recommend Maisie's book.

[00:53:24] Toni Ann: Um, these ghosts are family. Um, and then I spoke about my cousin's book, uh, the Officer's Daughter by l Johnson. And I just read a book that I love that was also like Generations of Family. It's called The Devil Three Times by Ricky Fa. So those are my, 

[00:53:41] Kim: I'll also put in a plug for Maisie's book, which I loved.

[00:53:44] Kim: Um, and I've been in conversation with Maisie during my book tour. I'm actually reading this book right now. Um, it's taking quite a long time to get through it, which I don't mind because it's so poetic and I, I just love the way it's written, but it's called The Living Infinite, and her name is Chantel Acevedo, I think.

[00:54:02] Kim: And it's based on like, like a real story of like a Spanish, um, royal woman who goes to Cuba. And I'm just getting past a stage where she's been breastfed by a royal royal breast breast feeder, or what do you, what do you call that? Nurse man. Wow. Um, but yeah, that it, it's very. I've had it on my nightstand for a while, a while now, but I'm just enjoying, enjoying moving through the text.

[00:54:29] Kim: So, and then I, um, also finished another, um, memoir, which I've been recommending. Um, she was actually my roommate at Brett Loaf, um, Carly Frisbee Brogan. Um, and her memoir is called Holding. And it's, um, actually about her experience with, um, heroin addiction, um, and also mothering, mothering as well. Um, and her relationship with her mother.

[00:54:53] Kim: And it's just, it's also very beautifully poetically written. And I was just impressed at how she can, you know, merge that, but also talk about this deep trauma and very, very ugly things that happen in her life. 

[00:55:07] Toni Ann: Hmm. That's all good. Thank you for those recommendations. Um, I guess we should wrap it.

[00:55:32] Kathryn: Thank you Kim and Tony Ann for being on the show. We are so excited to meet you, Tony Ann on March 26th and Kim, we can't wait for the release of Saltwater Sisters.

[00:55:40] Kathryn: Listeners, you can find information about their books and all the books they mentioned on our podcast page at Watchung booksellers.com. 

[00:55:47] Marni: This Friday, February 20th, Ray Dumont is launching her debut novel in the Shadow of Silence with a party at the uu.

[00:55:55] Marni: Montclair. Join her for reading food and live jazz performances. 

[00:56:00] Kathryn: And the next day, Saturday, February 21st, the Montclair Public Library hosts Alea Bundles, author of Joy Goddess a Walker, and the Harlem Renaissance. On Sunday, February 22nd, we welcome Joyce Wan to the kids' room for a story time reading of Lucky New Year's Colors to celebrate the Lunar New Year.

[00:56:21] Marni: You can get details and tickets for all of our events, story times, and book clubs through our newsletter show notes or at Watchung booksellers.com.