Quarter-Acre of Heartache & Other Claude Clayton Smith Books: Author Talk

Librarian Adam sits down with Claude Clayton Smith, an author who writes about the Paugussetts, the tribe whose ancestral lands include Bridgeport. We discuss three of his books: The Stratford Devil, his novel featuring settlers and Indigenous people around colonial Stratford; The Quarter-Acre of Heartache, following Chief Big Eagle's efforts to keep the Paugussett reservation in tribal hands; and Red Men in Red Square, in which Smith and Chief Big Eagle travel to visit Indianists, enthusiasts of Indigenous People in Russia in the early 1990s.

If you'd like to learn more about the Paugussetts, check out Bridgeport Unmasked's Episode 6: Paugussett Clan Mother Shoran Piper, for an interview between Clan Mother Shoran Piper and Librarian Kate Mozier-Tichy.

You can get The Stratford Devil and Quarter-Acre of Heartache at Amazon, bookshop.org, and shanitarts.com. The new edition of Red Men in Red Square will be available this year.

Have more questions about the books? Email Claude at smithclaudeclayton@gmail.com

Learn more about Claude's books and literature at claudeclaytonsmith.wordpress.com

Transcript

Welcome And Three Interlinked Books

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Bridgeport Unmasked, the Bridgeport Public Library's podcast series about all things Bridgeport. Today I'm joined by Claude Clayton Smith, an author who writes about the Pagossets. We're going to talk about his books, The Stratford Devil, Quarteracre of Heartache, and Red Men in Red Square. So please stick around to hear about these pieces of literature about the Pagossets, the tribe whose ancestral lands cover the city of Bridgeport.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Yeah, well, thank you for the invitation. And I'm going to start by throwing you a curveball because I'd like to talk about the books and the order in which you uh presented them. Um, The Stratford Devil First, then Quarter Acre of Heartache, and then Red Band and Red Square, because the one led to the other and led to the other. As Chief Big Uh Big Eagle always said, the Native American spirit goes uh where the wind blows and the grass grows. And that's where I went with uh with these books, following uh my nose um with this.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Well, certainly, and I want to respect Chief Big Eagle very much as we go through as we go through the night. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

So anyway, um you had asked in some notes you sent me about myself, but the key is that I grew up in Stratford, uh, Connecticut. And um how I ever got uh involved with Indians, Native Americans, and later Native Siberians, um, was very innocent. Um actually, my dad grew up in Stratford too, uh, and that was key to the Stratford Devil. I'll get to that in a moment. But as a young kid in Stratford, I began with uh being in the Indian guides, and as I remember, uh, you became a Cub Scout at age eight, so I think the Indian guides were pre uh pre-uh age eight, six, seven, eight uh uh years old. So we learned about Indians and totem poles and and all of that. And and at the same time, Indians uh were on TV. We had our first TV when I was living in Stratford, um, growing up in Stratford in the early 50s, and there was Roy Rogers and Cowboys and Indians. So Indians were a big thing. Um, but didn't stick uh to me in Stratford until in third grade when we went on a field trip through Stratford with our third grade teacher, Miss Viner, and we stopped at several places um where the pilgrims landed, uh, at um down there by where the Shakespeare Theater is or was. And she pointed out that at one time we had had a palisade around the town of Stratford, which was founded in 1639. And why do we have a palisade? Well, to protect us from the Indians, and that really fired my imagination. Something else that went along with that about the same time, my dad, every time we'd drive through town, down by the Sterling House, and down right now where the entrance to Route 32 is to I-95, he would point at this big tree and he said, You know, that's where they hanged Goody Bassett. And uh, of course, the actual spot is uh really difficult to find, but it's down there not far from the Stratford Library. So all these things I grew up with, and uh, and um uh and one day uh I just figured um I had to learn about Stratford history, and I read the book that was uh edited by my high school principal at the time. And once when I was back from college in the summer, I was down at uh along Russian Beach, um, which is on the south end of Stratford, walking along, and I started to get bombarded by these birds, the terns, the local birds. I think I was too close to their nests. And that many years later became the opening scene to the Stratford Devil when young Ruth is walking along the beach and these birds are are coming after her in some sort of mystical way. Uh, and she's uh sort of walking along and they're crying to her, and she discovers a big Indian mound, um, and and the plot takes off uh from there.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

That Indian mound being a large pile of seashells, very well cleaned seashells?

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Absolutely, very, very high, and there were a number of them along the coast, but the uh pilgrims uh in Stratford had to discover these and then wonder what they were about, and they were just uh the remnants of all different kinds of seashells that they would pile up, but very frightening uh until they learned what they were about. And then when you learn what they're about, well, the Indians are are close around us. You would ask uh what I had to do in terms of inventing characters for this uh story, and really all of the characters in the book are real, um, and I only had to invent two, but there were there was a historical precedent for each. There's only about a paragraph in in all of the literature about Goody Bassett and hanging, and it's up in Hartford in the record. And they said when she was uh in trial, someone stood up to uh defend her. And so I had the right then to put into that trial scene someone who defended her, and so who defends you best but your mother? My my daughter would never do this. So I invented uh uh Ruth Payne's mom. And then there was there was uh in the at about the same time wolf problems in in the Connecticut, and there were uh bounty hunts uh announced, and you could get money for killing wolves. And so I had the leeway to invent a bounty hunter by the name of Purvis. And so uh those and but all the details in there uh are right out of the historical record, and you can read the history of Stratford and and find them right in there.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Um Well, I mean, wolf wolf problem in the loosest sense of the word. The indigenous people were cool with them for millennia. In fact, very much revered them, as you make clear in your book. It was those Europeans who had a problem with them.

Pagusset History Behind The Fiction

SPEAKER_00 6:20

It was our problem because it was the the cattle that we brought over uh that they were taking, and then uh whatever else we had, uh, we'd penned them up, make it easy for for the wolves. Um now, how did this lead me to um uh quarter acre of heartache? Well, the pogussets actually are in the Stratford Devil. I mentioned the fact that there are five local tribes in the area there. And um leading up to um the history of to the founding of Stratford in 1639, there were two big movements. Actually, there was one to get rid of the Native Americans, um, uh 16 uh six to 1638 was the Great Pequot War. And so the colonists were getting annoyed, and the Pequots were a terrible tribe that scared all the other tribes in Connecticut. And there was a war, and they were literally uh going to try to drive them into the sea. So um there was this war, and the and the Pequots were involved in it, and they came down and they were chasing, uh they were being chased down through Stratford, and the uh Pugussets actually in the Bridgeport area sort of helped them and gave them shelter. The Pagussets, as far as I know, were not out there fighting. They were just sort of innocent victims swept up in this. And then later uh in uh 1675, 1676, there were there was King Philip's War after everything had been settled and the Pequots had been quelled, uh, and uh the Pagussets had been put on a reservation in Bridgeport 1659. Uh a bunch of tribes got together and tried to have one last ditch attempt at getting rid of these uh English people, these white men, and and of course that failed.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

So um was that was that King Phillips War?

SPEAKER_00 8:11

King that was King Phillips War.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

Okay, okay, yeah.

Meeting Chief Big Eagle

SPEAKER_00 8:14

And so um, and I put that in the book. Um, but and so and I put the the Stratford Devil to bed and it was published, and um it was simply a stroke of luck, and this is where when I talk about Chief Big Eagle and his spirit is still with me, and Shoran Piper can tell you that, his daughter um from the start, as if um when I wrote The Stratford Devil, I was destined to meet Chief Big Eagle. Why? Because suddenly I'm I'm down uh teaching at Virginia Tech, down in Virginia, and my mother, back in Stratford, keeping tabs on everything, sees some articles in the Bridgeport Post about the Pugussets. And uh this is when in the uh 70s, when uh they were in their big uh fight for the reservation. And uh and I said, What the hell is this? You know, I know those tribes, and my initial instinct was I'm gonna go and and find out about this chief because I thought this would make a great sequel to the Stratford Devil in terms of another novel. I will follow these Pogussets up from when they were put on a reservation in 1659 in Bridgeport, just to get them out of the way of the people in Stratford and Fairfield. They put them in between. Um, and so I thought it'd be interesting to do a novel. And then I got to meet Chief Big Eagle, and his story was uh so amazing that you know they say truth is stranger than fiction, so I thought I would just um uh write his story instead. So I'm down in Virginia Tech and trying to figure out now I didn't start, I didn't get to Virginia Tech in uh till 1978. So it's early 80s when I'm I meet the chief, and I'm learning about this war that began actually maybe a decade earlier. Um and so uh, but I wanted to meet him and and get to know him, and so I had my dad go up to the reservation from Stratford and and I because I'd written to the chief and he didn't answer me. Uh and so my dad went up and said, Hey, you know, my my son's a writer, he wants to meet you. So he agreed to meet me, uh, I think it was Thanksgiving, and I was home with my wife and kids uh in Stratford for Thanksgiving from Virginia, and went up to meet the chief, and he was, you know, greeted me and we're just sort of standing around in his log cabin there, and I'm waiting for something to happen, and a car pulls into the reservation, and he said, Ah, okay, that's my lawyer. And so I said, Well, why is the chief getting a lawyer on me? Well, he had been in the news so much in the Bridgeport Post and the and the New York Times about this war and battle for it to retain the reservation that a writer in New York had actually approached him uh about doing a book. And uh, the writer had a contract and had been given a big advance. And um where was the money for the chief? There was no money. Okay, so the the chief fired him. So uh I'm I'm at the reservation in walks this lawyer who happens to have gone to Westland, which was my alma mater. Uh so I said, okay, let's talk here. And uh I want to do a book on the chief. He drew up a contract, and then we and then we got started.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

So um and as you say in in Red Men and Red Square, uh Chief Big Eagle earned the paranoia that he carried with him.

Quarter Acre Heartache And Standoff

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Boy, I'll say, yeah, that's a good thing in all of these books, it certainly uh creeps uh through there. Um but uh one of the problems that the chief was facing was that there was in Connecticut a uh uh uh uh Connecticut uh uh Indian Affairs Council, but there were five different tribes, and the chief's tribe was not really on it, and he had to fight to get on it because they didn't consider him a tribe. There was just uh two people on the reservation, his relatives, and then he came to take over. And so the other tribes weren't really supporting him. And then uh it turns out that, and again, this was before I got to start writing the book, and this is what I had to learn in retrospect by talking with the chief, uh tape recording the chief, listening to those tape recordings all the way back to Virginia, doing research, um, and then uh beginning to write this thing up. Um uh it turned out that his one of his his neighbor, uh uh wealthy um young, uh I don't know how old he was, but a real estate man in Trumbull wanted that land behind the reservation for himself. Um and once the I mean it won it once was Pogusset land, but in order to get to it, get back to it to develop it, he needed access through the reservation. And then I guess he figured he could get the reservation for himself and declared, well, this is not an Indian and these are not Indians, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

And so uh a big legal battle started in which the other truck maybe just a few of the specific legal things that were uh that were contended over. Like first the neighbor said, Oh yeah, they I bought the land, which was total nonsense. Right. And then you can't build a septic tank here and other stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Yeah, all the time. And then ironically, finally they settled uh he he said, Well, we'll get a right-of-way through the driveway, um, you know, along the edge of the reservation. And as the chief said in the book, he once was gonna just give the guy the driveway. He didn't care as long as the locals left him alone there. But then uh with with the driveway came the idea that uh the um then the uh there wasn't enough room for a septic tank to build the new house that the state had promised uh the tribe. The old house was taken down. The chief won the right to have uh new log house, traditional house built. And then uh when the when they were sued over the fact that, oh, they can't have the house, they can't have a septic tank, uh, this is not Indian land. Um they they they got as far as this foundation was built, and then uh things got nasty because um the chief uh was in the news and he called up AIM and members of AIM came down, uh, and William Kunzler, the famous lawyer, came down. He was gonna defend the tribe.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

And you know, it was kind of heartbreaking to hear that tribes generally didn't support Chief Big Eagle, but a lot of individuals did, yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Exactly. And and he names those uh in the book, and that's always the way it was, and he points out that's the way it was back in times of the Stratford Devil when the white man came and they were dividing the local tribes, turning them against each other uh in order to um just get rid of all of them and have them fight each other instead of the the white man.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

So um I guess not too many details, but that's what Uncus did, and it was kind of disturbing to learn a guy that I essentially saw as like a good guy, but you know, James Fenmore Cooper obviously had his own axe to grind.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

So yeah, uh not many of our heroes can withstand uh a cursory uh you know re-evaluation, uh, although the chief stands up uh really well and he remains my my hero. So the problem was uh on Quarteracre of Heartache, who the hell had jurisdiction? You know, is it the local police, uh the local citizens and their town uh officials, the state, or the feds? And all of this was being uh debated.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Yeah, nobody wanted to hear the case.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

Nobody, nobody would take care of it. And uh and so the problem was then okay, uh they had to do a title search and and declare that this was the chief's land once and for all. And they had stopped building this uh uh house that you can see on the on the reservation today, now on the Shelton Road, and uh all that was there was the um foundation. It was winter. The chief was living in a in a little shed at the back. Other Indians that came from around the United States individually, along with members of AIM, were living in a teepee on the reservation, and and one day uh that one night that teepee got burned. So and that case was was never solved. The chief was uh out of town.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

It was arson. It was determined it was definitely arson, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

It was arson, and but they didn't know uh who to plame. And so I mean, they said, Oh, it was Chief Biggie, he'll burn it down himself. No, the chief was out of town. Chief got blamed for lots of things that were never um uh that he was never even connected with, you know.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

So like a murder states away or something. There was like this that happened states away that someone, yeah, yeah, it was it was this got disgusting after a certain point.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

It was, it was nasty. And the people, as I said in the book, they were either for the chief or against the chief. And um they had no sanitary facilities now then over there, but the guy who owned the gas station across the street who'd leave it open, so the Indians who were hauled up in the uh in the foundation, they were armed, members of AIM. Uh you you remember um uh oh, I forget the the actor from um uh uh the film. I mean, you know it, he's in the book there. Uh the guy who played Chingutch Cook, uh, he was one of them. And they were armed, and they said, Okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

Is he the one that also did the demonstration at wounded knee? Like, exactly. Yeah, I don't remember his name. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

Yeah, it's it's in the uh it's in the book. Um but anyway, uh then uh the one night this motorcycle gang came in and uh they said, Oh, they were the ones that were in the teepee, and uh Chief, you better get the hell out of there. And he had simply had enough, and uh and so he had a right to carry guns, and he shot the guy in the leg, and that was the end of the motorcycle gang. I they took off. But then um you asked me how did this play out? Well, uh it just made everything much more tense uh uh after that. Uh and there was an escalation of tension, and so things had to had to come to a head. And uh and when everybody showed up, there was a SWAT team, and I mean that one shot could have turned into a great big battle.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

You know, in fact, I think the you know, this is only my interpretation, but you tell me I think the only reason it didn't was because um everyone was concerned, right? If we do something on an indigenous reservation, what is gonna be the repercussion type of deal? Because the law is not clear.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

Absolutely, because it's not United States land. You're in Indian territory. You get off the street and you're on that little quarter acre, you better watch your back, you know. So anyway, the uh the lawsuit went through. William Kunzler came and and uh got things going. And um and so they won the lawsuit. Um and and they won the title uh to the land and and the and the um the house was finished. They uh and then and still the law they you know they kept on going with it because um there were other legal ramifications, and uh it finally came down, long story short, they were going to put a bill in it uh up in Hartford that would give the tribe legal rights uh reservation in perpetuity, but there was a clause in there that said if we do that, then the state does away with its care for the tribe. And that meant they would have to be uh have to pay taxes, and it meant they would be terminated. So the chief discovered that little loophole and and went up to uh went up, showed it to his lawyers, went up to Hartford, and they got embarrassed a lot of people, and they changed the law at the at the very end.

Lawsuit Win And Book Availability

SPEAKER_01 20:11

So yeah, and I would like to repeat what you said just to make sure people get it clear. He showed it to his lawyers, his lawyers completely missed it. That was that was one of the more impressive parts of his story.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Yeah, yeah, he was he was sharp, I tell you. He was a sharp guy, very smart. Um, so anyway, uh so that was that book, and and um and uh The Stratford Devil and The Quarteracre of Heartache are are out now in in new editions, and um, and all three of these books, by the way, you can get through uh three places. The first is shantiarts.com, one word, shanti-s-h-n-t-i arts, shantiarts.com, or amazon.com, or go to bookshop.org.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

And uh is there a reference? Like is there one where you get more royalties or whatever?

SPEAKER_00 21:09

Well, you know, if you go to ShantiArts, uh uh my ed my editor and publisher has to pay a little bit more of the of the um uh postage. So I would go to Amazon or bookshop.org. My publisher told me just yesterday uh is uh is uh a favorite one a lot of people go to. Um so I and I uh thank you for asking me to tell you where the people can find those books. And Red Men and Red Square, the new edition of that, the updated second edition, uh, will be out later in 2026 through uh Shanti Arts uh Publishing again. So and available on all those spots. Don't try to buy it now uh because it's out of print and people are getting ridiculous amounts of money for it on wherever they sell. you know, eBay and this and that because they know it's a it's a classic and yet it's out of print.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

And so you you thank you, Claude, for sending me a uh a Google Doc version for the purposes this evening.

Translation Offer Sparks Moscow Trip

Soviet Collapse And Underground Indianists

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Appreciate it. Yes. Yeah, oh sure. And uh and when uh when the time comes, you know I'll I'll send you the uh the official new publication. Thank you. Yeah. Okay, so how did I get to do Red Men in Red Square? A colleague of mine who was um editor of the Hemingway Review was hosting an international, international Hemingway conference in Ohio at our university. One of the topics uh in that conference was works uh uh of Hemingway that included Indians. One of the international delegations uh coming to that conference was from Russia and it included uh Alexander Vyshenko who was the Soviet Native American authority uh the the Russian authority on Native American literature and folklore and so my colleague suggested why don't you just uh get the chief to sign him a copy of Quarter Acre of Heartache given that book and and that'll be a nice gift for him so um and uh and then he said well you know if I want to go um to the conference uh he he'll uh give me a free ride when we go out to Michigan to look at Hemingway places if I drive the van and that's what I agreed to do and that's when I got to talk more with Vyshenko. So we give him a copy of Quarter Acre of Heartache he stays up all night reading it and in the morning he says I I like the chief he is tough a very tough man and I want to translate this book into Russian and I want you and the chief to come to Moscow. Well I said boy this is this is terrific um so uh and then we were up uh in Michigan um on this little tour I was driving the van and we went to see a Native American uh uh uh church not a native not a native american a church uh and uh a church where native americans were converted and um and uh um at that graveyard behind that church we ran into Chief Nakahoma who was the uh mascot of the Cleveland Indians the kind of stereotype you know wah wah uh wahoo wahoo uh of the uh of the Cleveland Indians who are now called the Cleveland Guardians by the way and uh was this time before that started to be they had a lot of pressure to change the name yes oh sure yeah this was early he and he was in the forefront with that well he had um I forget his name but it's in the book his real name but he had you know discovered his own Native American roots and realized this is kind of stupid what I'm doing. You know I and he was uh so he was tracing his own Native American roots right to that graveyard he was introduced to Vyshenko and all of a sudden another van pulled in it was from the University of Michigan and there was a film crew doing a documentary on Native Americans in Michigan. So within a moment or two you had Chief Nakahoma uh Levi Walker is the guy's name I should I should just cut the Nakahoma out of there knock him run you know geez um so and it so Levi Walker and uh guy from University of Michigan and Vyshenko are on film and making a documentary. And so uh then um we went around to all these other places and uh and I took them back and uh put them on the plane out of Detroit going back to Russia. Now this was this this was uh the end of October of 1989 and and so uh Vyshenko said I want you and the chief to come this summer and I said you know the chief doesn't like to fly but I'll see I'll see what I can do. And then three or four weeks later the Berlin Wall fell and so Russia is in chaos and um I'm thinking oh boy you know and so for the my fellow millennials out there in Gen Z can can you just take a moment to to state how significant that moment was absolutely one of the most uh uh significant historic moments of the of the 20th century because it brought to an end uh the the communist rule in in Russia and when that Berlin wall fell the Soviet state fell apart and there was and so the place was in chaos and it took probably uh this was 1989 it took another 10 years before Putin took over but in the meantime you know uh there was uh Gorbachev had the c notion of glasnost which meant an opening to the world and then perestroika we're gonna be better with all different kinds of people and all that just was blown up in smoke when the Soviet Union fell and you didn't know who was going to be in control and you had people like uh Yeltsin coming on the scene and uh people struggling for power, uh Putin in the background and uh Russia about to become a uh in in essence a capitalist state with a communist uh uh slant in other words uh they had always had a a planned uh economy but now it was sort of a free-for-all and all of the means of production and companies and oil facilities were just being grabbed up by people who became oligarchs and it was not the best time to go to Russia. And so but Vyshenko had said well come on over in July and I convinced the chief to go which was which was something because I know he didn't like to fly and he was uh I was able to pay all of his way and my way too because he's the legitimate university uh subject of my of my research so we get over there and this is all preliminary to how this book Red Men in Red Square came about we were simply supposed to go to Moscow and lecture at the Gorky Institute of World Literature which was part of the National Academy of Sciences and the premier place for all academics. And what happened was we get to the airport which is all in chaos and Vyshenko's not there to greet us and what is this here we'd flown all this way and we're supposed to go here and do this and now this little scruffy crew of these three young guys meets us and uh and they they knew my name and I'm saying where's Vyshenko and they tell me in kind of broken English oh Vyshenko telegram smease that's me he said you know to come you mean we're not supposed to be here yeah there was an error on our initial very initial letter uh he meant June but he had written July for the visas so there we are in July and um uh and Vyshenko's out of town with another foreign delegation and he puts this in the hands of these Indianists now who are these guys well they are former they are citizens of the former Soviet Union Russian people all through the Russian Federation all the way up into Siberia who preserve the traditions and culture of Native Americans and why do they do that? Because Native Americans have always stood up to their government and wanted to be their own people in their own land on their own land. And so therefore it was always an under an underground group one of their uh heroes was Lenin do you mean it was like it was outright illegal or it was just it was yeah there yeah there was a um uh uh uh it's in the book uh article 2227 of the Russian code which makes it illegal to perform to in engage in any activities that are not uh in in step with the legal the um specified Russian Soviet code of conduct and and uh ideals you know so um ironically the Russians always used our treatment of Native Americans as propaganda against us and and and uh they pointed out Leonard Peltier look you got that guy in jail and so Leonard Peltier who was allegedly allegedly killed people at the massacre at wounded knee in uh 1976 when aim took over the place uh he was nabbed and they blamed it on him put him in jail he was in jail for 50 years until President Biden let him out just uh uh as his last thing in January of 2025 he became the uh international cause cerebre of the uh not only the Indianists but a lot of indigenous people around the world um and so the Indianists had a cause had a uh a I believe he had a shirt with his face on it if I'm not mistaken absolutely the chief knew Peltier and and made a uh actually a beaded belt with uh an image of Peltir that he took off the t-shirt that said free Leonard Peltier and so here we are in Moscow with these guys who are Indianists and this turned out to be the best thing that ever happened for the chief but not necessarily me because I'm considering what the hell you make that very clear by the way I I make that clear but the chief was connecting uh with these um with these Indianists and they and they just absolutely wowed him we went to this uh dilapidated apartment in one of those cement canyons in Moscow where these poor poor guys lived and um uh and they began showing us uh things that they made for their annual powwow which had just concluded um uh a few days before we got there and they make all these Native American clothing uh uh uh headdresses uh tools um archery bows and arrows everything from the by following the Native American diagrams and um research from people who had studied the Native Americans and they put out their own booklet on this called Native American Reports and and they showed that to me and it was all in Russian but I flipped through it and there was a photo of Leonard Paltier and there they showed they had some cartoons in there they showed an Indian putting up smoke signals and then the smoke signals being answered by belching smokestacks uh in Russia uh and because Russia was the saddest place I've ever been to and because since the communists took over uh in 1915 and now here there's 70 years later and uh and there had been no basic maintenance you know I mean the place was falling apart.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

That was probably the single biggest shock of all three of these books frankly I always thought it was U.S. propaganda but you saw it you wrote it and I was like wow things are bad.

SPEAKER_00 33:50

And and I mean to bring that home we were uh what fortunately one of these three Indianists who picked us up a young young guy who was a college student um but he was a uh a history major and he spoke English uh fairly well and we were going through town in this taxi cab coming from the airport to this dilapidated apartment and there was this building down there I think that was the ride that we passed that building and it had lights going around the top of it like you see in Times Square when there's some message up top on the building and I said uh what what is that saying I said maybe maybe it's a an art exhibit or something or something a show we could go see I'm still thinking of a tour of Moscow and he translated he said don't plug it in if the wiring is frayed now that was the message to the people of Moscow in July of 1990 don't plug anything in if you've got fray wires why because all the wires were frayed uh F-R-A-Y-E-D I mean I was afraid of frayed wires the whole damn place was a fire trap uh so and we're living in this and I remember the apartment we stayed in in order to turn the light on in the bedroom you had to jerk this string until some sparks came out of the fixture and then the light would come on and it was a three light bulb fixture there were only two light bulbs in it and uh because light bulbs were stolen everywhere and you couldn't buy a new light bulb and when we went back in 1991 to go to this powwow uh Indianist powwow there was only one light bulb in there you know and the faucets were dripping and so it was something but uh to you know if the chief and I we were taken right downtown to the center of Moscow where you could go into a super shop for international wealthy people where they only take credit cards and it's like shopping in Paris you know uh or New York so but the rest you the you get a few blocks away from that and it's uh and it's poverty all the way so anyway that was our first summer and we went up uh the we stayed with the Indianists in Moscow we took a train up to Leningrad to meet the Indianists in their group and it was there that um we were going through a they took us to a Native American museum pointing out very carefully that this is uh Leningrad's Native American official Native American museum that allowed nothing about the peace pipe and spirituality because Russia was just atheistic and so in essence there goes your Native American oh it was still called Leningrad then that's it was called Leningrad and right downtown you know in Stratford as a kid growing up right after Thanksgiving we'd go through the town's center and you'd see these Christmas lights strung across from pole to pole right across the street and in Leningrad in the summer of 1990 they I said oh it's Christmas no there were hammers and sickles displayed on these things hung right across the street and uh so we were taken to this museum because the chief wanted to see what about your native people what about your native Siberians and there were some elements of those people in there too but while we were there we were skirted away from what the chief wanted to see down into this basement they said oh a special special thing for you we're going to show you the gold room the chief didn't want to see the gold room he wanted to see native Siberians and uh and we get funneled downstairs and all the people we went with are disappearing out what the hell is going on the chief was getting mad and the guy who was escorting us Alexander Kozlov one of the Leningrad Indianists who plays a great role in uh Red Men in Red Square he said Smith uh tell chief to hurry illegal meeting so these these Indianists had you know uh commanded commandeered the the the basement room at the state museum and all we got in there and there were it was filled maybe 50 of these Indianists who had been sneaking in all the while and they came to hear the real thing here was the Native American chief I mean it was like I had shown up with God you know um the closest thing they know to God and here's Smith worrying about this and that and so the chief uh they talked and um uh uh he talked and he told them about the war for the quarter acre and uh and he said you know uh uh but you can read about all that in the book that Vyshenko was translating and then he said what I want to talk today about is Native American spirituality because you don't see any of it in this museum we just went to you know there's no pipe there's no peace pipe and he said uh white people have the wrong idea of the peace pipe it's used for all bargains it's not just for peace you know you smoke the pipe and and it's a you you it's a unity and um so he explained about that and then um took some of the people brought um uh some of the clothing like we'd seen in Moscow that they had made and and he said stop that I got to take some photographs of this the people back home will never believe what you Indianists are doing. So anyway he he brought the house down by saying with what you're doing in the future uh young Native Americans might have to come to Russia to learn how to be Native Americans and that shows the dedication that those people have that a lot of unfortunately our own Native American people don't have who are so assimilated uh uh these days so when I read that line it was like a hammer yeah it was it was and uh so we went back in 1991 we had missed the powwow we went to the pow which was like if you saw the movie Dancers with wolves all you younger generation people I went to with the chief to an Indian village that looked just like that and they had made all the teepees and the and the regalia and that's where the chief uh had a heart attack and uh nearly died but uh as uh he said you could read all about that in Quarterac of Heartache your audience can read all about that in Red Met in Red Square the new edition that will be coming out uh later this year okay um so uh all those things my my wish to your people is to realize that all these books came out of my own backyard literally and one led to the other led to the other led to Russia led to books on Siberia when I lived in Ohio I did a book on Ohio I'm living in Wisconsin now I did a book on Wisconsin all of them coming out of my own backyard any of your people who are interested in writing tell them to get out in the backyard dig a dig a hole or fart around in the backyard.

SPEAKER_01 41:05

Absolutely and uh if I may it is good writing um I read Stratford Devil and that's the first time I ever realized how out of place a European church must have been in the present American forest just reading that I was like oh I can picture that so clearly yeah no um uh all three books really a joy. Uh Claude that worked well in my opinion. Um I was going for a summary but you had a lot of behind the scenes stuff too which is great for people who have already read the books. So I think it's really cool.

SPEAKER_00 41:40

Anything else you want to throw out to everybody just um uh my email smithclawclayton at gmail dot com if you've read these books have any question send me an email I'm always emailing and getting in touch with writers I read okay it's a joy and uh and it's uh and uh uh and it's flattering also uh give uh give out my um go to my website claudeclaytonsmith dot wordpress dot com and you could see a photo of the go to the slideshow and you'll see me and the chief in Red Square in that slideshow and you'll see all about the different books there and um so um yeah be in touch you know and Adam I I thank you so much. This is such a joy to get an invitation like this um and this is what it's all about to be able to give something back and talk to the people who read the books.

SPEAKER_01 42:38

Oh no absolutely thank you very much for your time Claude uh yeah so so everybody the books are The Stratford Devil, Quarteracre of Heartache, and uh hopefully later this year you say Red Men in Red Square, which has a new subtitle Chief Big Eagle and the Russian Indianists. A very appropriate subtitle that's awesome Claude well hey thank you for taking an hour out of your day today you you haven't heard the last of me I appreciate it I'll let you I'll let you know when this thing is up and running great I appreciate it. Yeah yeah uh you demand I appreciate it you as well thank you I appreciate that very much thanks for sticking around till the end of another episode of Bridgeport Unmasked you can get Claude Clayton Smith's books at FantyArt Amazon or bookshop.org and if you're looking for another episode to listen to may I recommend the interview that my coworker and I did with the clan mother of the book awesome Jordan Piper can't wait to have you listen to another of our episodes on Bridge for United