Whitcoulls Recommends: Kin and Surviving White Island

Kin by Tayari Jones - who was the author of a wonderful book called An American Marriage a few years ago, which I loved. In this new one, Vernice and Annie are both motherless, close as sisters, growing up in small town Louisiana during the Jim Crow years. Their lives take them in different directions - Vernice to Atlanta and college, whilst Annie heads to Memphis in constant search of the mother who abandoned her. It’s stunningly written, about two Black women navigating the prejudice, misogyny and cruelty of that era and whose bond with each other stands the test of time and distance.

Surviving White Island by Kelsey Waghorn. Kelsey was a tour guide on Whakaari White Island and was caught up in the devastating eruption there in 2019, which changed her life forever. This is her account of what happened - the aftermath, injuries, recovery and sheer grit required to get through each day, in a memoir which is both brave and inspirational from a young woman whose future changed in an unimaginable instant. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
And I am joined now by Wickle's head book buyer,
Joan McKenzie. Good morning. I should probably call you job
a book buyer or head of books, either as book
manager the boss of books. We'll call you the boss
of books. Hey, what have you got for us today?

Speaker 3 (00:29):
I've got a new book by Tayari Jones, whom some
listeners may remember. A few years ago I had talked
on this program about a book called An American Marriage,
which I loved at the time. She's an American writer
and her new one is called kin Ki n which
is about the bonds of families, or people who are
as close as family but not necessarily related by blood.

(00:51):
And this book tells the story of two young black
girls growing up in the little town called Honeysuckle Isn't
That Nice in Louisiana during the Jim Crow years. Vernice
and Annie are their names, and they're as closest sisters.
They were brought up together, and they refer to themselves
as being cradle friends because even as babies they were
so close. But part of their bonding is that they're

(01:13):
both motherless, and in time, as they grow up, they
both get out of town and their lives take them
in very different directions. Verniece goes to Atlanta and goes
to college, where she meets a young man from a
wealthy black family and his mother works very hard to
take the country bumpkin out of Vernice, and Annie has
adventures on her way to Memphis, where she believes her
mother might be and she tries to. She travels to

(01:36):
try and find the mother who abandoned her all those
years ago when she was very little. And of course,
given the era in which this is written, there's a
lot of racism, there's misogyny, there's prejudice, and each of
them have things they have to overcome, but their bond
with each other manages to stand that test of time
and distance as they find each other again in vastly

(01:57):
different circumstances to how they started out. But what they
do is discover the true meaning of kinship, and that,
of course, is where the title.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Times comes more about friendship rather than sort of a
coming of age story or is it a bit of both.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
It's a bit of both.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, nice, okay, how Kelsey Wagghorn was on the show
Yes last week and it was a privilege to meet her.
She is a force of nature and what she's been
through is extraordinary and it was really interesting hearing her
talk about it in her book and on air. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:28):
Yeah, And she has been on the media circuit lately,
so a number of listeners may have heard her speaking.
But as you say, and I appreciate it as I
read this, his story is unimaginable. I mean, we all
heard about the eruption and what happened and how badly
some people were injured, to say nothing of the people
who didn't make it, But the reality of reading about

(02:49):
it from someone who was actually physically there is deeply moving.
Listeners may know that she was a tour guide for
the island and she'd done I think around nine hundred
excursions out with tourists, and she was responsible for a
group of tourists when the volcano exploded and something called
a pyroclastic surge engulfed them or which very scary stuff

(03:11):
even just reading about it. She was lucky to survive,
although obviously critically unwell, and during the time when she
was so sick, her family got together on a messenger platform,
and they circulated texts and messages between one another, which
enabled people to keep up with what was going on,
but also for us as readers, now gives us some
context about what was happening for her during the time

(03:33):
that she herself was unaware. She had more than fifteen
surgeries to go through, and then of course psychological trauma,
emotional upheaval. But what I took from this was just
the sheer grit, putting one foot in front of the
other and keeping do it. And I know that it's
a terrible cliche, and I really shouldn't say it, but

(03:54):
this is a story about more than just injury and survival.
It's that resilience of the human spirit that people talk
about that becomes so evident after great trauma in some people,
and Kelsey is certainly one of them.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
When I talked to her about getting off the boat
when she came back to fat and she is severely injured,
her skin was falling off her body, and yet she
got herself off the boat. She wanted to get off
the wharf and into an ambulance as fast as possible,
into the hospital. And when I said to her, how
could you actually physically do that. She said, I just
wanted to get I could see my family with her,

(04:26):
and I just wanted to get into the hospital before
they knew the extent they could see me, and I
just wanted to protect them from which I thought, No,
She's just extraordinary. So Kelsei Warehorn's book is Surviving White Island,
and the first book that Joan spoke about was Kin
by Taari Taari Jones. See you next week.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
Thank you for more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin.
Listen live to news Talks it'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio