bars</tle><g id="el_oZ84Hna1GC_65hRV2Qwn" class="css-1fxvzwo" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_oZ84Hna1GC_ILVvi2tqx" class="css-1wnday1" ata-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_oZ84Hna1GC"><rect x="34" width="6" height="36" id="el_qw_T_tngXw"></rect></g></g></g><g id="el_mYVjkduhMU_p_9Pm85Ac" class="css-fwki7z" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_mYVjkduhMU_WxG3R40yd" class="css-t3i5e6" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_mYVjkduhMU"><rect x="22.67" width="6" height="36" id="el_lf9GrROk6j"></rect></g></g></g><g id="el_o-EuxhgoAw_kYNRGDfcw" class="css-t9te0w" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_o-EuxhgoAw_3c3bzSjOJ" class="css-1r5375t" ata-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_o-EuxhgoAw"><rect x="11.33" width="6" height="36" id="el_-iueO8klO0"></rect></g></g></g><g id="el_F7mSMPhqpC_y_fKcpSxn" class="css-qknaag" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_F7mSMPhqpC_R6bNB6_Ys" class="css-1vd04" ata-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_F7mSMPhqpC"><rect width="6" height="36" id="el_dS5TKNZZ5w"></rect></g></g></g></svg></div><div><div class="css-1t7yl1y">0:00<!-- -->/<!-- -->1:00:59</div><div class="css-og85jy">-<!-- -->1:00:59</div></div></div></div></hear><div class="css-uzyn7p"><div class="css-1vxyw"><p class="css-1nng8z9">transcript</p><h2 class="css-9wqu2x">Barbara Kgsolver Thks Urban Liberals Have It All Wrong on Appalachia</h2><h4 class="css-qsd3hm">The Pulzer Prize-wng thor Barbara Kgsolver talks about wrg “the great Appalachian novel.”</h4><time dateTime="2023-07-21T09:00:06.000Z" class="css-1e605">2023-07-21T05:00:06-04:00</time></div><dl class="css-p98d0w"><dt class="css-xx7kwh"></dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">From New York Tim Opn, this is “The Ezra Kle Show.”</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">So 2023, the Pulzer Prize for Fictn was won by two novels — “Tst” by Hernan Diaz and “Demon Copperhead” by Barbara Kgsolver. And Kgsolver, I thk, is a lerary legend her own time. I mean, she wrote “The Bean Tre.” She wrote “The Poisonwood Bible.” She has won all kds of priz. But I thk ’s fair to say “Demon Copperhead” is a kd of masterpiece. And ’s a kd of masterpiece she was tryg to create. She set out to wre — as she tells me this nversatn, she was settg out to wre the great novel of Appalachia. And I thk she did.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And this is a novel that is followg loosely the stcture of “David Copperfield” by Dickens. It’s a novel set a ltle b back time. I thk that so much of our thkg now about, this is polil and plac that go for Tmp and plac that don’t go for Tmp. But the novel is set the ‘90s and the 2000s, so a ltle b before some of the current enomic and polil cleavag atta, at least the form we know them .</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And ’s a betiful book. It’s a wrenchg book. It’s a book that I routely had to stop readg bee I was so fed wh the character and so fed wh the story that when I uld see somethg bad g, I jt uldn’t handle before bed. I jt uldn’t go through that wh the ma character. So that, I thk, is about as much as you n say for fictn, when almost feels more real than the life you’re livg.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So I was grateful she was willg to e on the show and talk a b about her life, how she me to wrg the novel, the sort of experienc she brought to , and the kd of argument she’s tryg to have through .</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">As always, my email: </p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Barbara Kgsolver, wele to the show.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barbara kgsolver</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Thank you for havg me.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">So you’ve said that you’re Appalachian through and through. What do that mean to you?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barbara kgsolver</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I’m Appalachian. And ’s a funny thg. It’s a marker. Appalachian means you say, I live Appalachia. It’s a regn that’s a ltle hard to p down on a map bee clus parts of a lot of stat, startg om north Geia, eastern Tennsee, wtern North Carola and Virgia, up to the al untry of Kentucky and Wt Virgia, and then up to the Ridge Country of Pennsylvania.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So that sounds plited. But to , is a whole place. We’re more nnected wh each other, culturally and geographilly, than we are wh the far ends of our own stat. It’s a place, and ’s a md-set.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">We are nnected by our mountas, our enomi, and the fact that, for a uple of centuri, we have been treated almost like an ternal lony of the U.S. We have suffered the exploatn of extractive dtri, managed by and profed om outsi pani that e and take what they n and leave a ms.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So started out wh the timber dtry. Then was al. Then was tobac. And now, the latt r this al tra of exploatns has been the opid epimic, which was, aga, que liberately perpetrated on as a vulnerable populatn.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">We’re gog to e back very much to the opid epimic. But before we do, I want to talk a b about jt your geographic history. Bee you grew up Kentucky but then moved to the Congo. Tell me a b about the var plac you’ve lived and why and what was like g back then, later life.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barbara kgsolver</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">OK. I grew up the eastern part of Kentucky, sort of the foothills of Appalachia. And that was really my home for my whole schoolg years up until I was 18 and left. Bee of, sort of, a very unual history, my dad was a physician who was dited to servg — well, he was om poverty. He was the first person his fay to go to get higher tn.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And he was termed, after he beme a doctor, to serve people who really need a doctor. And so for most of that time, that meant the ral parts of Kentucky, where he’d grown up, one of the more enomilly prsed parts of the U.S. But om time to time, he would get vatns om his lleagu to go to plac where people need a physician even more.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And so that took to the Congo, to ral Congo, for about a year of my life — I ll the what I did stead of send gra — and a few other plac, once a stt the Caribbean. So those were, kd of, adventur my childhood.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But we always me back to Kentucky. So I still nsir myself a Kentuckian. But I was the one among my classmat who had lived on another ntent. I mean, most of my classmat never left the unty, so did distguish me. I was a person who had seen the world.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And maybe bee of that, I had a sense of the world and that I wanted to see on my own terms. So when I was 18, I went to llege the exotic, faraway land of Indiana. And I was lucky to do . Very few of Nicholas County High School ever went to llege.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">That was a really rare thg. Nobody my school was tellg me, you need to take the thgs lled SATs. Nobody was advisg me. I jt kd of clawed my way to a scholarship. And I got to Indiana, DePw Universy. And to my amazement, there, I disvered I was a hillbilly. I’d never thought of myself as a backward — g om a backward place. But oh, my goodns. I need only to cross the river to Indiana to disver what ignorant, backward folk we were om Kentucky.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And people lghed at my accent. People actually — I was a cursy on mp. People I didn’t know would e over to me the dg hall and say, say this. Say this world. What’s this? They wanted to hear me say syp and mayonnaise and the other words that they thought were hilarly charmg.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And so I set about slowly, not even that tentnally, alterg my persona the world, erasg my Kentuckian affect jt so that people would hear my words stead of makg fun of them. And so now, I’ve tried to bee this imagary smopolan person.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I always wrote. I jt didn’t thk that I uld be a wrer. But that was an important and really dark phase of my own wrg. I tried to wre om that place of this imagary smopolan Barbara. And was jt the most ridiculo, fakey nonsense you’ve ever read.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">And then, to fast forward a ltle b here, you lived as an adult Arizona for que some time and then moved back the 2000s, I believe, to Virgia, to where you live now. And I always thought of you, I thk bee I read you that perd, as a wrer Arizona. But now I unrstand more of the plexy of . So tell me about the cisn to move om Arizona back to Virgia.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barbara kgsolver</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">It was all a part of the — my exod om Kentucky was driven by what, I thk, driv most small-town kids. We want to kick the ltle-town dt om our sho and go see the world. If we’re lucky enough or [CHUCKLES] fierce enough or rourceful, we do that.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And after llege, I actually backpacked around Europe for several years, dog the low-payg jobs that you n do as an expat livg out of a backpack. And I really wasn’t sure I wanted to e home, whatever home was. But I had to bee of visa problems the late ‘70s.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I lost my work visa, so I had to e back to the U.S. and jt cid to try out Tucson, Arizona bee I wanted to see the Wt — seemed the next step my exploratn of the big world — and didn’t really plan to stay Tucson. But thgs happen. When you’re at that stage your mid-20s, you get a job, and then you get a ltle better job. And then you meet somebody, and then you have a hoe, and then you have a kid. I went to grad school. And next thg I knew, I was really pretty settled Tucson.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">It didn’t feel like home, not really. No place I’d ever lived outsi of Kentucky felt like home. There were thgs I really loved about Paris and Athens and ral northern France. And there were thgs I really loved about Tucson. But never felt to me like the sert wanted me there. I missed towerg green tre and mossy creeks and the sound of crickets at night and birds the morng. It jt was — never felt right. And I ached to e home, whatever home was.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Then, after grad school, I began workg as a eelance wrer, and I was workg as a journalist. And so I learned a lot about the terrory. And I was tryg to wre a southwtern novel. And then I had this epiphany.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Someone actually gave me Bobby Ann Mason’s short story llectn, “Shiloh and Other Stori,” which was a very big book that year the world. She’s om Kentucky. That book broke out that year wh a lot of praise om the Amerin lerati.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I read . And I was amazed bee was people who talked like me and who worked at Walmart. There were shiers, and they did shift work, and they were workg-class Kentuckians. And the sl fell om my ey. I unrstood that I had been holdg my light unr a bhel, that my own voice uld be somethg that people might want to hear.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And so then I did a ep dive back to the Kentucky wrers I had known but need to reread wh new rpect — Wenll Berry, Robert Penn Warren, poets, Jam Still, Harriette Arnow. And I re — ’s not exactly a revery. It’s more like a re-acquatance wh and embracg of my own Kentucky voice.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I found this voice. And I named her Taylor Greer. And I put her charge of tellg this Arizona novel. She was a character who me om Kentucky, moved to Arizona. She did not have my life. It’s not tobgraphil. But I knew her voice and her story and her mannerisms and everythg.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I put her Tucson, Arizona. And she told the story. And that was “The Bean Tre.” It was the first fictn I wrote that was succsful bee I had cid to own myself, my Appalachian background.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">This book has a lot of that dynamic to . And one thg that is thread through is Demon, the narrator, balancg the pri he feels the place he om and the shame he feels, or the shame he has been told to feel, the place he om. And you’ve talked terviews about havg ternalized the shame of your upbrgg, of where you e om. What is that shame?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barbara kgsolver</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Well, this place where I live, jt over the mountas om Kentucky southwtern Virgia, is the perfect home. We live on a farm. And ’s jt exactly where I want to be, among people I want to be wh and to claim as my own and as my neighbors.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So here I am, as an Appalachian wrer, and was fally wh Demon Copperhead that I uld tell the most Appalachian story I’ve ever told. I really [LAUGHS] — I know this probably sounds ridiculo, but I wanted to wre the great Appalachian novel.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I wanted this novel to hold the entire story, the whole background, of why, why is we are who we are, all of the thgs that people look down on, how they are not our flt, how they were perpetrated agast as, sort of, an enomic program explog , and, also, all of the good stuff, that we are people ma of muny, that we are the most rourceful Amerins you’re probably gog to fd anywhere.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So what is that shame that I had ternalized? Well, look, wasn’t jt llege. It was everywhere. Jt about every time you speak wh someone who is om outsi of your regn, they make some remark like, [SARCASTIC LAUGH] you seem really ted for a Kentuckian or, more cly, ha-ha, you’re wearg sho — I’m not kiddg — or, more subtly, are there any people there you want to be iends wh MAGA untry?</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">How many people, well-meang people, have asked me, how uld I live there, the middle of nowhere? People, this is my everywhere. This is my everythg. I live on a farm that grows food where water out of the mounta among tre that make oxygen. Cy folks are pendg on for a lot of thgs that they routely disunt or make fun of.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">It’s been a very long program the velopment of the world that enomi and ernments have urged people to the ci, away om the untrysi, tried to get land-based people to the ci bee — there are a lot of reasons, but boils down to this — people the money enomy n be taxed. People a land enomy produce a lot of what they nsume on the spot. So if you’re growg your own food and eatg , there’s no way to pull tax out of that.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So I know this sounds really simplified, but is the bottom le. And I n pot you to pots history where this has bee overtly an issue — the Whiskey Rebelln. Gee Washgton marched the whole army to Appalachia bee people were makg whiskey, and the ernment wanted to tax . Well, there’s no money changg hands, so you n’t. And that was the reason for a war.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">It feels like an impossibly simple thg. But if you look at all the ways that ral people are stigmatized, down to their self-sufficiency that’s beg mocked. If you look at the rtoon, “Hillbilly,” he’s got a fishg pole — that’s food self-sufficiency — he’s got the jug wh the XXX on — that is alhol self-sufficiency — and he’s got a straw hat on. That’s bee he’s a farmer. It’s all about what he’s makg and nsumg himself.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">It’s so sid people don’t realize . But this long, long-term brawashg has rulted a wispread notn that cy people have got , cy people are the advanced form of humans, and ral people are sort of havg this provisnal existence. They jt haven’t ma yet to the real life. And so everybody looks down on the untry people. And the untry people sort of absorb that. You n’t help but absorb .</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So when I set out to wre my great Appalachian novel, I was paralyzed wh self-doubt. Bee I mean, my startg pot was that I wanted to wre about the opid epimic, which has bee a huge asslt on our culture, our fai, our muni. It’s vastated so many of the good thgs about this regn that we value and that we love.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And so I wanted to wre about the kids who’ve been damaged and this place that’s been damaged. And seemed like a really hopelsly sad story. Pl, ’s about people that I didn’t feel the outer world red about. And so I jt really — I spent a uple of years walkg around and around this story, tryg to figure out how to break to that hoe. Bee I really felt sure nobody wants to read .</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thk there’s so much power that. And ’s somethg I was thkg about a lot durg the book. And let me try to see if I n hold two thgs tensn here bee everythg you say is te. And I thk your pot about the ways which people om ral areas are visually stereotyped, havg a lot to do wh self-sufficiency, is te.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And this is somethg that, I’ll be hont, sometim I thk grat on cy dwellers. So I e om a people who, over and over aga, were driven out of land. I e om Jews driven by pogroms, aga and aga, off of land where they uld have been self-sufficient, and to ci, to one cy and then to another cy and then to another cy. Part of my fay to Ameri by way of Brazil. Another fay by way of Eastern Europe.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And there has always been this tensn, I thk, broadly, particularly afflicts Jews, the sort of rootls smopolan stereotype. But then there’s also this si thread Ameri — I won’t speak for other untri — of, oh, the cy dwellers aren’t real Amerins. They’re not on the land. What they do isn’t real work.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I remember Gee W. Bh wng the electn 2004. Oh, Democrats have lost the heartland. There’s a part of this untry that is s real heart. And the other parts, they’re not real. You’re not a real Amerin. You’re somethg else.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thk all the ntempt you talk about is real. And yet also do, this strange way, go the other way. And maybe that is a kd of cliché, a kd of pat on the back where your enomy is stroyed, but, oh, you’re a real Amerin. But there is somethg I always thk about when I hear this — that has never felt to me that the ntempt actually only go one way. As a Jewish urbane, I have fely often felt that is very easy for people all parts of Amerin polics, but I’ve mostly heard on the right, to talk about ci and talk about people like me and wh my history as if they are pletely alien to this place.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barbara kgsolver</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">You’re absolutely right. It’s a dialectic. It’s an antagonism. It’s like there’s no pot askg who started this bee ’s a really, really old antagonism. And you know, I was jt talkg about a larger amework of velopment that has really tried to get people off of the land.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But here we are, the middle of , wh a lot of rock throwg both directns. And ’s bee vastatg for Amerin polics. Bee ral people, who are ls equently lled heartland as lled flyover untry, ’s a sort of a self-fense, sayg, well, they hate . We hate them back.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And let’s talk about who gets seen and who gets to tell the story the U.S. I thk that’s probably what’s most cril right now is that all of our entertament, our news media, ’s all ma ci. And I thk this has left ral people feelg so unseen and their problems so trivialized or ignored that they have gotten vulnerable to a damaged extent so that they’re ready to vote for the person who along and says, look, I see you, and I’m gog to blow up the system.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">OK, not the right answer, not the right guy, but I unrstand why so many people, for the first time, felt like — for the first time many electn cycl, somebody was payg attentn. And now we’ve got a ms bee that validated this urban notn that those people, they’re votg agast their own terts. They’re not well-ted, so they n’t make good choic, so we don’t really need to listen to them, so we jt hate them.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So ’s worse than ’s ever been my life, this urban-ral antipathy, to the pot where nversatns are really difficult to have bee we will only take rmatn om people we tst. That’s jt human. That’s the animal we are. We only listen to people that we feel like are on our si and gog to look out for .</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So if you open a nversatn wh, you bonehead, then that nversatn is over. And those are the only nversatns that are happeng now a polil arena, and ’s sry. So this is somethg I feel like I n do, my small way, as an Appalachian who has also been lucky enough to have a higher tn. And I n read a lot of stuff, and I’ve lived a lot of parts of the world, and I n e back to my home and see what’s good about and what’s challengg about . And I n try to talk across this divi.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I mean, “Demon Copperhead” is my attempt to speak to people — well, ’s dog two thgs. I want to be a wdow and a mirror, as they say books n be. I wanted to be a mirror for my people to feel seen — and that’s been an amazg experience, to hear om kids the foster re system, om teachers, om so many people Demon’s walk of life sayg, I never knew that anybody else uld see how hard this is — but at the same time, to let people om elsewhere unrstand the plexy of our liv here, the nuance of Appalachian culture, the value of our muni, the whole esystems of characters that we are — the bad and the good — and the ways that we take re of ourselv. I wanted this book to be a nversatn about that divi. And is beg read mostly by people who are not om here.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">So I’m stg here the epicenter of urban journalism at “The New York Tim.”</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barbara kgsolver</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah. Well, yeah, exactly, exactly.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Which has gotten much worse over time. It ed to be that you had much more geographic dispersn of the papers people read — not so much the TV they nsumed — but lol rad statns were stronger, newspapers were more regnal or more lol. And that is not gone but is even weakened om when I was a kid.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barbara kgsolver</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Oh, ’s so nearly gone. It’s really sry to me.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Even a place like California, where you still have The L.A. Tim and The Chronicle and others, The New York Tim is the biggt paper California. It’s based New York. And I was thkg about this for a bunch of different reasons.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But one of the thgs that, even if you thk — and I do thk this — that, then, some of the qualy of journalism people get is better. You n get amazg natnal and ternatnal journalism, which was much harr to get when I was growg up.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But what even a great ternatnal paper n’t do is create a sense of lol inty and pri. When you are growg up somewhere that is not New York and you read The New York Tim, there is a functn that regnal media, that lol media, played that is not beg played for you that I would be very different if I hadn’t had when I was growg up.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barbara kgsolver</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd"></p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd"></p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barbara kgsolver</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Well, and inty asi, jt the rmatn.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Y, jt the rmatn, of urse.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barbara kgsolver</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">And about maybe 2 percent of what we see and read about is about . So ’s a void that’s — how do we addrs that? It’s really profoundly bilatg not to see yourself anywhere. And we’re aware of this terms of other — we’ve ma huge stris jt the last terms of inty polics.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Y, we unrstand people wh disabili need to see themselv ads and shows, film. We unrstand that people of lor need to see themselv to feel validated. OK, ral people need to see ourselv, too. Farmers need to see ourselv, too. And we’re not.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And so I hope ’s unrstandable that we’re really mad, that we’re really tired of beg overlooked. And the enomic aid that go to farmers really go to factori, dtrial farms that are producg soybeans and rn that are gog to fast food. And that’s not helpg people.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Another unique qualy of Appalachia is that we’re one of the last strongholds of small fay farms bee of our topography. Bee the mountas, there’s no flat land. A farm might have a half an acre of one acre that’s flat. And all the rt is too steep to plow.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So we don’t have the giant b. We don’t have the giant wheat fields and tractors that look like they me out of “Star Wars.” If we ever see farmg on TV, ’s that. And that’s not real people. To , that’s not farmg.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I want to move to the universe of the book. And there’s a particular character who I thk bridg a bunch of the nversatns we’re havg here, which is Tommy. So n you tell me a b about Tommy?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barbara kgsolver</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">The ghost the room here is Charl Dickens. Bee I owe him everythg wh rpect to this book. Charl Dickens is the key I fally found to the door of that hoe of this novel.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">When I cid to wre this as a morn-day “David Copperfield,” he gave me, I gus, the chutzpah to tell the story. Bee people really liked his versn of . And I thought that uld surely help. He gave me a crackerjack plot and all the amazg characters. And he gave me Tommy, who was lled Tommy “David Copperfield.”</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I will say here, as the disclaimer I always make, you do not have to read “David Copperfield” before or after you read “Demon Copperhead.” It’s not necsary at all.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">There’s not a tt?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barbara kgsolver</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">There’s no tt, no. But I took “David Copperfield” as my template, and I jt laid my book right over bee worked so well. And then, of urse, I had to e some of the characters other ways. And Tommy, he was lled Tommy Traddl “David Copperfield.” In my versn, he was lled Tommy Waddl. Everybody has a nickname here.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So Tommy, who’s Demon’s bt iend his first foster home, which is a horrible foster home — ’s this farmer who foster kids as enslaved labor on his farm, basilly. He the money that he gets for beg a foster home to pay off his farm tax, and he the kids for ee labor. And he’s really pretty horrible, and he don’t feed them enough, and that’s really sad.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But the boys bond. And Tommy’s a sweet, sad character who mak the bt of everythg, but he knows he’s never ever gog to have a real foster home. Nobody wants — he says, nobody wants the fat kids. He’s really big for his age. But he’s a rear.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Demon is fascated by the fact that Tommy brgs home armloads of books om his school library, and he stash them unr the bed. And at night, he tells Demon the plots of all the “Magic Tree Ho” he’s ever read and all — he reads the Boxr kids. So even though Demon is not himself a rear, he’s troduced to — I gus Tommy is the first tellectual he’s ever known.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And as they grow up their own hardscrabble ways, they rennect. That’s a Dickensian thg, the great Dickensian cinc. They n to each other a few years later a pharmacy where [LAUGHS] Demon is pickg up his illic dgs. He ns to Tommy, who’s now workg at a newspaper. He’s a janor, but he’s found a job.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And he works his way, actually, to the newspaper bs. And he puts his tn to good e, beg a py wrer for ads the lol ltle newspaper, which is — ’s sad bee those lol ltle newspapers hardly exist anymore. But I worked on one when I was high school, so I know how that all works, how you lay stuff out on the table wh wax.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">You cut them out, and you lay the lumns out. And that was really fun to wre about. The whole place smells like hot wax. And they form a partnership, actually, Demon and Tommy, that be Demon’s extraordary way out of his suatn — or a part of .</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">One thg you’ve tght me to do really effectively, I thought, is talk about how, even what might seem like sympathetic verage of Appalachia reads wh. So he gets very upset, for stance, over a headle that jt says, “Rural Drop-Out Rat on the Rise,” which seems like a pretty ntral headle. So what do he hate about ?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barbara kgsolver</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">What he hat about is that’s all anybody ever hears about is the bad stuff. And yeah, this is Tommy’s tn, like me and like all of the kids this book, have no ia how we are seen by outsirs. We’re jt people. The kids have never thought about beg Appalachian.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And now that Tommy’s workg a newspaper and he’s seeg the headl that e over the AP thg and he’s workg for this ltle town newspaper Penngton Gap, they’re lookg sperately for some syndited stori that have relevance to the lol area. He’s attendg to this, and he’s seeg what’s g through.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">He’s dismayed that the only thg that outsirs ever seem terted noticg is how poor the place is, the dropout rat, the poverty rat, the unemployment rat. What about the good stuff? They’re livg all the good stuff, too — all the mamaws that look after every kid the neighborhood, the fact that you know who your neighbors are all the time, and they’re always gog to be there for you — unls they’re not, but that’s important, too.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Demon tri to expla this Demon psychology. This is what he knows. He says, look, everybody needs somebody to punch when they get mad. Bee this is all he’s ever known. So the stepdad punch his wife or the girliend. The girliend punch the kid. The kid has to go kick the dog. Everybody needs somebody to look down on.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">When Demon explas all this to Tommy, about how everybody has to look down on somebody, and then has the nversatns wh Tommy about how much nscensn, how they’re seen by the rt of the world, he says, well, we’re the dog of Ameri.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Now that Tommy’s bee aware of this, he se everywhere. He se the TV has a ftival of stupid hillbilly movi — “Deliverance,” whatever, “Hillbilly Chasaw Massacre” or whatever is.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Now that his ey are opened, he’s seeg everywhere. And he gets really upset about bee he’s got this email girliend om eastern Pennsylvania. And he’s aaid to meet her bee he says she’s gog to thk I’m a stupid hillbilly. And her whole fay is gog to thk we’re stupid hillbilli.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So this be Tommy’s qut, to figure out how this happened and why. And so that be, this is a way for the rear to follow Tommy on this qut to unrstand how this happened. And so Tommy, as the neart thg we have this book to an tellectual, he reads some social history, and he figur out.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And so allows the rear of this novel — and this is jt a ty part of the book — but there is a moment where the rear gets to learn about land-based enomi and money-based enomi. And Demon, his short stts of livg ci, visg or livg — when he’s rehab, he liv Knoxville — and he liv this. And he giv you the story Demon speak.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So he says, there’s untry poor, and there’s cy poor. When you’re the untry, at least you have food. He says, the cy, where are people even gog to raise their tomato Knoxville? He feels the speratn of people who have no accs to the fundamental needs, like appl and tomato.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">He has a job the produce sectn of Walmart. When the artificial ra on every 15 mut to keep the produce wet, he says, this is the clost thg people are ever gog to see to ra on a real vegetable. And he feels sad for them.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">As you mentned, Demon and Tommy meet foster re. And foster re mak up a lot of the first half-ish of the book. And ’s really — I mean, as somebody wh young kids, ’s hard to read.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And somethg you’re focg on there is the way which the opid epimic hasn’t jt harmed those who have been killed or have end up rehab or stgglg wh addictn but how many children have simply lost parents. Can you talk a b about what you found when you were rearchg that, or seeg around you, and how you began to thk about the sle of what has done to children now?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barbara kgsolver</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah. That was my pot of entry to this novel. That’s what I really wanted to wre about — the orphans. It’s a whole generatn of kids. The unti around where I live have enormo — I n’t give you exact statistics. I’ve heard anythg om 15 percent to 35 percent of kids some of the unti who are beg raised by someone other than their parents bee their parents are addicted or rcerated or ad.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">We have a generatn of orphans g up through our schools. Some of them have gone to foster re, but the system is so credibly overload, which you learn about the nove. There’s so many more kids need than there are social works to tch them — but the seworkers are so overload and so pathetilly unrpaid.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">They make ls than schoolteachers. They don’t make enough, really, to live, the seworkers. The turnover is really rapid. The fil get lost. The kids are jt lost. I didn’t even know until I did more rearch to this that’s where we are.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">This is somethg that I thk the world needs to know about, this untry — voters — need to know about. We need to know how this epimic has left a generatn of nocents that nobody’s takg cent re of.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">The story of the big players the opid epimic — Purdue Pharma, the attorneys and the D.E.A. and all of that big story has broken. And ’s been told betifully by a handful of journalists have done a great job of crackg and tellg that story, Beth Macy among them, wh her fantastic book “Dopick.”</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So that was my pot of entry this novel. The story I wanted to tell was not about the big guys but about the ltle people. The kids have been left behd. Our burned public school systems are beg asked to raise the kids.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Our public schools are the pot of livery for pretty much all the social servic that the kids may get. They get most of their food om ee school lunch. A lot of them are not gettg fed at home.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">They get their mental health re through the school system. It’s not the public school that livers , but unty mental health agenci liver the re. The unselg they do is the schools bee they n’t expect fai to take kids to unselg.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So this is a burn on our public school system and on our librari and on everythg that we have here that nobody outsi of this regn is even aware of. So we need rourc, not jt for treatg addictn, which is an immense need, but that’s only one part of the damage. A bigger part of the damage is what we do for the kids.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And so that’s the story I wanted to tell. I want to jt tell the story of the orphans. And that’s why Dickens me llg and told me, orphan stori n work. Let me give you an ia.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">You had a passage here that I found extraordarily movg. This is how Demon be an orphan but also how he has to thk about, and over his life has to procs, his mother and her relatnship to him and what her ath meant terms of her re for him. So do you md readg the passage on page 109, begng wh “I had roads to travel“?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barbara kgsolver</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Sure. And this is at his mother’s funeral. His mother overdosed on his birthday. And he uldn’t help but feel pretty fur at his mom for this abandonment. And now he’s lookg back, bee this narratn, this first-person narratn, is told om the — ’s a retrospective om later his life, the advanced age of, maybe, 25 or somethg.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So he says here, he steps slightly outsi of the funeral scene and says, “I had roads to travel before I would know ’s not that simple, the dope vers the person you love, that a cravg n ratchet self up and up si a body and md at the same time that body’s strength for toleratg s favore dg go down and down, that the longer you’ve gone hurtg between fix, the higher the odds that you’ll reach too hard for the stars next time. That big first sh of relief uld be your last.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">In the long n, that’s how I’ve e to picture Mom at the end, reachg as hard as her ltle body would stretch, tryg to touch the blue sky, reachg for some peace, and gettg . If the grown-up versn of me uld have one chance at walkg backward to this story, part of me wish I uld s down on the back pew wh that pissed-off kid his overly tight church cloth and dark hawk attu and tell him, you thk you’re giant, but you are such a small speck this screwed-up world. This is not about you.”</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">You have an tertg way of puttg his mother ntext this part of the book. And you talk about her as the unknown soldier. You talk about the way which nobody cri over someone’s bad personal cisns — not nobody but society do not cry over one person’s weakns.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But then, when there are a mounta of bodi, then a story is lled for. Then a narrative tak hold. Then ’s not their flt. It be a societal force prsg down on them. But the people who fall at the begng, they don’t get that grace, not publicly and even, at that time, not their own fai. Bee ’s their own fai where the narrativ have to take hold.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I’d like to jt hear you talk a b more about that, about how you thought about the rpect we do or don’t give to people who end up addicted to, or dyg om, meditns that they were given and told by people wh medil gre or people who were there — the nurse the doctor’s clic — that this was, safe and somebody had checked this out for them.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barbara kgsolver</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Exactly. That’s the crime, that this dg was so addictg. And the doctors who prcribed were told otherwise. And this regn was sgled out as particularly vulnerable, partly bee health re livery ral plac is stretched so th that there’s very ltle opportuny for follow-up.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">They often see people on the one sick day that that person has a year om work.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So, of necsy, ’s prcriptn pad doctorg. And Purdue saw this as an opportuny bee there are so many people here wh work juri, old mg juri, disabily. And so they jt thought, aha, we n make a killg here. And they lerally did.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And to rearch this book, I spent time — I sat down wh a lot, a lot, of people who had been through this whole journey to learn about the si of addictn ways that — and jt the logistics, like, here’s a pill. How do get to your ves — a lot of the specifics that I, fortunately, don’t know om firsthand experience.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So I listened to a lot of stori. And I shed a lot of tears wh people who told me their stori of how they beme addicted. And most of them started wh a legal prcriptn om a doctor they tsted, a doctor who was gog on the bt advice, who said, you have to stay ahead of the pa.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">You set your clock. You take this on whatever timetable you’re supposed to take . Don’t miss a pill. Take this pakiller. And by the end of their 30-day scrip, they were addicted.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And so this was done to them. Nobody wants to be addicted.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But what I’ve found, and what I thought so much about the urse of wrg this novel — I realized that was another of the prejudic I knew I was gog to be up agast. Bee people have such firm ias of addictn as a moral failg, as a failure of willpower, a failure of virtue.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And that’s been done to . That’s a brawashg — that the so-lled war on dgs, which I thk h s 50th anniversary this year, has been a whole lot of brawashg on how the answer to this problem is, jt say no. The answer to this problem is rceratn.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">We have been traed, culturally traed, to thk of addictn this way, as a personal failg that needs to be punished.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Inrceratn do not cure addictn any more than cur ncer. Addictn is a disease.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">It’s a disease of the bra, of dopame and nrons the bra that have been damaged and rewired so that if you don’t keep gettg this dg, you get so sick that you feel like you’re gog to die. You wish you’re gog to die. And you might die.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">It’s impossible to scribe how terrible this disease is, not jt the dope sickns of but the fact that your entire life has to bee jt a really difficult, hard work procs of, every morng, gettg your means, gettg your fix, gettg through another day. And nobody wants to live like that.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So one of my hop wh this novel is that, by portrayg this procs of addictn om the si, people might have more passn for as a disease and thk of people wh addictn as diseased.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I mean, even our own fai, we see this. Nobody would tell their dghter wh ncer, OK, I’m gog to kick you out. I’m gog to wa till you h bottom. And then you n have chemo.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">That’s how we treat the disease of addictn. And ’s credibly humane. And effective treatment will only happen after we swch over om puttg this the hands of the police and the prisons to medil workers who n meet addicted people where they live and offer them the first steps of clean needl and fentanyl tt strips so that they won’t die the weeks that will take for them logistilly, physilly, emotnally, to get to the begngs of treatment.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">There’s still a lot of people who have a sort of, I gus, a moral objectn to harm rctn centers that jt give people the basics of clean needl and fentanyl tt strips to keep them alive. It’s as if people feel that addicted people serve to die. Image if we looked at any other disease that way.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">One thg that I thk you scribe really well here is that the sire of the market, the mand for OxyCont and for other siar dgs the perd, was also an oute of the kd of work we have people do and the kd of liv we have them live.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">You scribe OxyCont, then, as, quote, “God’s gift for the laid-off ep-hole man wh his back and neck bon grdg like bags of gravel, for the bent-over lady pullg double shifts at Dollar General, wh her shot kne and A.D.H.D. grandkids to raise by herself.” And there is somethg — I mean, all addictns are a kd of horror — but there’s a leralns that is often a ltle b obscured wh other dgs.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">This was a dg people got on to treat real pa — and pa they often had to go through bee they were tryg to make a livg and beg ma to do repetive tasks that the human body is not built for. And there is jt both a horror to that but so much of this book, both the foreground, at tim, but the background, a lot of tim, is about the enomics of the area. And one of the enomics of the area is the kd of work people have to do.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barbara kgsolver</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Exactly. It was so predatory. It was so tentnal. And we know this now, that Purdue Pharma looked at metrics. They looked all over the untry to see — and intified, as I unrstand , three regns. It was a batn of mg and a lot of physilly taxg labor that left a lot of people wh disabily and pa.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">They’re g people’s pa for prof. So that was part one was to fd the areas where a lot of people live pa and have work juri that they’ve rried for, many s, s.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And the other thg is, as I mentned before, this very stretched-th health re livery system.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thk that one of many thgs that people ci don’t unrstand is how hard is for to get to see doctors the untry. The unty where I live, for many years, did not have — ’s a big unty, too — but we did not have one physician here who uld liver a baby, not one. We had to go to Tennsee.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">One of the characters this novel, Dori, ends up havg to qu school when her father is sick. Her mother is ad, and her father is gravely ill. And she has to drive to get him to heart-lung specialists and the different doctors he has to see almost every week. She has to drive to another state.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">That’s the se. I have driven wh my kids to see specialists. Many tim, I’ve driven to doctors who lived four or five hours away the neart cy. This is somethg that’s jt — that we live wh here. There are not enough physicians to meet our needs. And so you have to wa a long time to get to one.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And that doctor don’t have the chance to follow you up. He’s got one chance to help your, this se, terrible pa. And he’s got this dg.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I mean, they knew this was gog to work. They knew that they would be able to pump to the unti, many s, more than one or two pills for every man, woman and child the unty.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I mean, the flow of the dgs to the unti the very short time, the relatively few years that was allowed — sort of before the whistle blew — is phenomenal. And once that addictn has begun, don’t go away after the dg is reformulated. The next step is hero.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">One thg the book really emphasiz is both the protectns and, I would also say, the predatns of muny, somethg that is there Lee County the world of the book — I thk also, many ways, real life — is a knowgns. Over and over aga, Demon ns to people om his past or fds that there is a nnectn to somebody om his past. And ’s like, well, that’s Lee County for you. Everybody’s nnected to everybody.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And there’s both the moments of credible grace that, the story you tell about him. And then, also, I feel this tertg dark si of , where he’s preyed upon by people his muny over and over aga, or allowed to fall through the cracks over and over aga, that the muny is not able to be that protective and, at tim, is even the source of the danger.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So I’m cur how you thought about that. Bee ’s clearly somethg that you love about the place — I mean, through — but also somethg that you didn’t allow that to be an easy answer. And many of the worst thgs done to him are done to him not by a faraway enomic force but somebody livg right down the street.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barbara kgsolver</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thk that’s so much of the damage that happens is bee of the way that muny where he liv has bee damaged and unraveled by the dg epimic.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But jt to back up and talk more generally about muny, somethg, sort of a mantra for me my teenage years, growg up a real ltle town, was the great thg about muny is everybody knows your bs. And the thg that sucks about muny is everybody knows your bs.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So if you’re a teenager tryg to do somethg that your parents don’t know about, ’s not gog to happen. They’re gog to know. You’re gog to have a flat tire, and the guy that pulls up to help you is gog to tell your dad wh mut.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">If you make an enemy, you’re gog to n to him aga. It’s a funny thg. And that’s really Appalachian. We are people ma of muny, for better and for worse, but mostly, I’m gog to say, for better. You are your people.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And when you meet somebody new for the first time and you s down wh them, the first nversatn is always the same. I would tle that nversatn, who are your people? You s down, and you talk about, like, who are you, and what do you do? And then you jt keep talkg until you fd out that your papaw is related to their send , or they worked together at one time, or you fd that pot of nnectn.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And then you relax. And then you have whatever other nversatn you’re gog to have.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But that’s jt how is. We don’t even thk about . We are jt all aware of how we’re related to each other. And for the most part, that’s a rare and betiful thg, I thk, pecially the Uned Stat of Ameri, which has bee, sce World War II, so mobile that ’s very mon for people to live muni where they’re not related to anybody.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">We know everybody. We live among our people. And fai functn — when a fay member gets taken out, there’s a larger fay to absorb. Up to a pot, really works well. It’s sort of our own — another level of our self-sufficiency.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">When somebody di, everybody brgs food. You know your neighbors. You look everybody the eye. When you drive down the road, there’s this way of wavg that people put one fger up om the steerg wheel. It’s like everybody wav at everybody.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And this through the novel when Demon go to the cy, and he feels like an alien. He feels visible bee nobody looks him the eye. Nobody wav to him. Nobody looks at anybody.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And his iend there, who’s a cy guy, says, well, they’re savg their juice. You gotta save your juice. You n’t jt give away to everybody bee you have to save for your own people. And if you gave away to everybody you saw, you’d be done wh your juice by 9 o’clock the morng.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And so Demon ponrs this. And he realiz we, Appalachia, are the juice enomy. I mean, we give ourselv to everybody. Ladi get together on ont porch, and they make quilts to give to the girls high school that are pregnant. That’s a real thg. Ladi get together and make sack dners to give to the kids at school that are gog to go home for the weekend and not have any dner.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">It is how I thk we have adapted to the centuri of exploatn om the outsi, jt takg re of ourselv. And that’s Mrs. Peggot the novel, who looks after Demon and knows more than he realiz about his suatn.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But n only get you so far when you have somethg on the level of this addictn crisis cuttg through whole generatns of fai, takg out so many people, and also puttg so many people a posn that they have to steal to live. It’s the most tragic part of the whole story, I thk, is what has done to muni.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">You talked about, and you mentned earlier, feelg like a b of an ambassador between worlds here and this book, particular, beg a way of explag where you e om and where you live to people who are a very different world who are pickg up the latt Pulzer Prize wner fictn at the bookstore.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">If you were dog the ambassadordom the other way, the other directn, tryg to munite what’s betiful about ci, about some of the other parts of Ameri, to the people you live wh or to the people you’re scribg this book, what would you emphasize the way that you emphasize muny gog the current directn?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barbara kgsolver</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I would talk about the value of, the richns and the privilege, of livg among many people who are very, very different om you, who aren’t related to you, who e om a different untry. I mean, I jt thk about, for years and years, until she died, when I ever me to New York Cy, I stayed wh my agent, Franc Gold, her apartment on East 11th Street.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I jt thk about that part of New York Cy, the Lower East Si, and how I would jt walk down the street and hear people speakg different languag and pass the Italian place and the Polish place. All of the world is there. And how much you n absorb om people who are not like you who are whe and not whe, people of lor, people of so many lors, people of so many orientatns, people who are gay and straight and trans.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And acceptance and fort wh difference wh proximy. And that’s somethg that’s hard for here. Bee jt as a product of history, of the settlement of this regn and the fact that there was really no good reason, after was settled maly by the Sts-Irish, there was no good reason — there were no employment opportuni or other reasons — for people om outsi, om other untri people who are non-whe, not whe, to e here.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So here we are. There’s a whole lot more diversy Appalachia than outsirs may thk. We aren’t a dull monoculture. But ’s also possible to go to school, and ’s ual to go to school, wh people who are mostly like you, mostly your race and your class and your ste.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And so one good thg about what kids get and, well, adults get om televisn is exposure to people who are different. But that’s not the same as havg a iend who’s different om you. And so that’s somethg that I wish we had more of here.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thk ’s a lovely place to end. So always, our fal qutn on the show, what are three books that have fluenced you that you would remend to the dience?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barbara kgsolver</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I would choose two books that are Appalachian about my place. One of them is by Arwen Donahue. The full tle is “Landgs — a Crooked Creek Farm Year.” And I love this book. It’s a graphic memoir. It’s not like most books you’re gog to see.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">She’s an artist. So this book is a memoir of her year on her farm, which is the unty where I grew up. And every page is, on the left-hand si, a pen and k waterlor drawg of a scene of a day of a life her farm. And ’s paired wh really lovely prose that jt scrib their year on their small farm, growg vegetabl for a farmer’s market.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I said earlier that ’s really rare to see scriptns of farmg that are not eher nscendg or romanticized. This is neher. This is real. It’s jt a real look at what life is like for a fay that’s very attached to a piece of land and makg their livg om .</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I remend Beth Macy’s follow-up to “Dopick,” which is lled “Raisg Lazas.” It’s a great piece of journalism on where we are now wh this epimic and what n be done, what’s beg done, and what we need to do more of.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And then the third is a novel that I jt read that knocked my socks off. And ’s nothg to do wh where I live. It’s actually set entirely the ocean. It’s lled “Pod” by Lale Pll. And is set entirely the ocean. It’s not science fictn. It’s realistic. It’s set the here and now. And none of the characters are human. I’ll jt tell you that. And ’s fascatg.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Barbara Kgsolver, thank you very much.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">barbara kgsolver</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">You’re wele. Thanks for your tert.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">This episo of “The Ezra Kle Show” is produced by Annie Galv. Fact-checkg by Michelle Harris, Kate Sclair and Mary Marge Locker. Mixg by Sonia Herrero. Our senr edor is Rogé Karma.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">The show’s productn team also clus Emefa Agawu, Jeff Geld, Roll Hu and Krist L. Origal mic is by Isaac Jon. Audience strategy by Krista Samulewski and Shannon Bta. The executive producer of New York Tim Opn Aud is Annie-Rose Strasser.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p></dd></dl></div></div></div></div><div style="posn:absolute;width:0;height:0;visibily:hidn;display:none"></div><hear class="css-1vwfk9f" data-breakpot=""><div style="width:100%" data-ttid="flt-layout"><div style="background-image:url()" class="css-197zlhc e1llfg0"><div class="css-1hmsypo e1llfg2"><div class="css-131hid3 e1llfg3"><div class="css-1uhi299 e1llfg1"></div><div class="css-1tloyb6"><div class="css-ah35qo ehra6vc0"><a href=" class="css-2ne0py"><span class="css-1f76qa2"><img alt="The Ezra Kle Show logo" src="><span>The Ezra Kle Show</span></span></a></div></div><div class="css-1r0dpua e1llfg4"><div class="css-wfiq9c edye5kn0"><div><h1 class="css-15oz550 edye5kn2">Barbara Kgsolver Thks Urban Liberals Have It All Wrong on Appalachia</h1><h2 class="css-syyj5g edye5kn3">The Pulzer Prize-wng thor Barbara Kgsolver talks about wrg “the great Appalachian novel.”</h2></div><span class="css-xpptmx edye5kn4"></span><button type="button" class="css-w62hzm" aria-haspopup="te" aria-label="Show Aud Transcript"><div class="css-1vd84sn"><svg xmlns=" width="24" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 20" fill="#F8F8F8"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M0 0H24V20H0V0ZM3 7H21V9H3V7ZM21 11H3V13H21V11ZM3 15H21V17H3V15ZM11 3H3V5H11V3Z" fill="#F8F8F8"></path></svg><span class="css-16bt4xd">Transcript</span></div></button></div><div class="css-1g7y0i5 e1drnplw0"><button tabx="100" class="css-1rtlxy" type="button" aria-label="close"><svg width="60" height="60" viewBox="0 0 60 60" fill="none"><circle cx="30" cy="30" r="30" fill="whe" fill-opacy="0.9"></circle><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M38.4844 20.1006L39.8986 21.5148L21.5138 39.8996L20.0996 38.4854L38.4844 20.1006Z" fill="black"></path><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M21.5156 20.1006L20.1014 21.5148L38.4862 39.8996L39.9004 38.4854L21.5156 20.1006Z" fill="black"></path></svg></button><div class="css-rdbib0 e1drnplw1"></div><div class="css-18ow4sz e1drnplw2"><div aria-labelledby="modal-tle" role="regn"><hear class="css-1bzlfz"><div class="css-mln36k" id="modal-tle">transcript</div><button type="button" class="css-1igvuto"><div class="css-f40pzg"></div><span>Back to The Ezra Kle Show</span></button><div class="css-f6lhej" data-ttid="transcript-playback-ntrols"><div class="css-1ialerq"><button tabx="99" type="button" class="css-1t9gw" aria-label="play"><svg xmlns=" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M8 13.7683V6L14.5 9.88415L8 13.7683Z" fill="var(--lor-ntent-sendary,#363636)"></path><circle cx="10" cy="10" r="9.25" stroke="var(--lor-stroke-primary,#121212)" stroke-width="1.5"></circle></svg></button><div class="css-1701swk"><svg xmlns=" viewBox="0 0 40 36" id="el_0kpS9qL_S"><tle>bars
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